May Zhee - Blog

2011-10-20T06:08:00.001-04:00

Everything I'm about to write is fictional. Entirely fictional. So I assume zero responsibility for all the statements hereafter.

He asked me why we were normal, and I gave him an explanation that made sense to me. That it's feelings, I guess, but I don't know if it's really feelings. It should be. Me not being okay with involving other people in our sexual relations. As much as I want to move away from an unconventional relationship, a part of me moves closer. It's as if I like and don't like it at the same time. Sometimes I feel like I express jealousy about you and other girls just for the sake of it, when I'm not really jealous underneath, but an impulse calls for it. Do you understand? You're just unfortunate, I guess. I feel like you were just pigeonholed into this position in my mind.

Yeah, I guess it only made sense to me.

People like to say, "It's because you actually like him." You can almost see their face contort in the manner if they were to say the statement in slow motion. It's because you actually like him. It just sounds too convenient to me. Poor guy. Maybe if I didn't. actually. like. him that much, he'd have the wildest manifestations of his fantasies fulfilled.

He thinks it's companionship that we're together. I don't know what it is, so I'll just agree with him.

Learning the map of America.

2011-10-05T00:35:00.000-04:00

I copied the nondescript shape onto my notebook, and then turned to ask him, "What state is this?" "Pennsylvania," he answered, and then gave this weird huff of breath that functions as a chuckle, which I've inadvertently picked up because it's such a convenient way of laughing. Yes, I am learning the map of America. Fifty motherfucking states in a country. (And a federal district, says Wikipedia.) It's interesting to be on the other side. Who knew Massachusetts was not south of New York. My first quiz on that certainly did not, and if I thought I could get partial credit by writing Boston all over Pennsylvania I was wrong.

This country is huge, and I feel like I'm never going to leave.

Hey, it's been a while.

2011-09-19T00:40:00.000-04:00

What a calm, calm start to the year. So the reason I haven't been blogging is, you guessed it, I'm happy. I'm blissfully, uninterruptedly, definitely happy. Things have just fallen into place and I felt like my pieces make sense now. Maybe we're never really meant to pick up our pieces, or put them back together. Sometimes things just need to look right.

And look right, they do. It's official. I'm staying put where I am. It took a year to smooth out the bullshit, but we're here. I'm so glad, because neither of us wanted to go through that "weird dance we did last year", as he puts it. Making the leap from that weird dance was, well, weird, but it happened. And it's been greater than ever. Not just in terms of us, but how he's just such a great human being to be with sometimes. I'm comfortable with him, though at times I feel like I shouldn't be. He's very smart, and constantly challenges me on things, though he usually is never able to change my mind, and his criticisms link back to him just as much. Sure, he may have the tendency to mess up in the typical (cave)man way, but he makes up for them almost instantly, though I admit to being the petty bitch at times. We step forward, we move backwards. I like it.

We function like really, really, really great sex, except with that dynamic taken out of just the carnal realm. We should be really dysfunctional, but it works. Seamlessly, beautifully. I feel like we've merely transitioned from unhinged turmoil to contained chaos. Not to mention, we have really really really great sex.

I'm happy. I don't care how long this lasts. It can end tomorrow, but I'm just really, really happy. He's a special one. What a keeper.

Exhausted.

2011-08-11T15:42:00.000-04:00

It's 3.31am and I'm wiping away tears that come so naturally to me now. I cry, because I'm not who I am anymore. I thought it was a crisis, but what happens when the crisis permeates your everyday life and thoughts. When you become conscious of how you act with people, how you think about people, and what everything means to you. The person this blog used to know was dying slowly, and -

I don't even know how to write this. It's too hard. For weeks my fingers have hovered over the keyboard. I don't know how to express just how big yet insignificant this is. I'm tired. Too tired. I sigh a lot. I don't want to do anything with my life. I am dead on the inside. It happened a long time ago.

The problem with such emptiness is, how does anyone go on.

Tips for students studying in America*

2011-08-08T03:12:00.000-04:00

I am always having to have this conversation with people.

People: But America is awesome!
Me: ...How?
People: I mean, New York is great!

Yeah no. New York is great. LA is great. San Francisco is great. [Insert the few major cities they have] is great. But that's 0.01% of America. What about the rest of America? Or.

People: But America is awesome!
Me: ...How?
People: Oh you live in Rochester, you wouldn't know.

Again false. Rochester is what's normal of America. Rochester is the equivalent of every other non-major city (EONMC) in America. I have spoken to my friends and relatives who go to school or work or live in EONMC in America, and it's exactly like Rochester. Michigan State in East Lansing. University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Yale in New Haven. Family in Hartford. Washington DC. Binghamton. Amherst. Western Conneticut. Maryland. Trust me, due to debate, I've traveled to more places in the region than anyone else, and newsflash: THEY ARE ALL LIVING IN ROCHESTER. Or I'm living where they are. Same thing, because America is a copy-and-paste country. You live in one area, you can live in all.

That could be good news, or that could be bad news. For me it's bad news. Because I require where I am living for the next FOUR YEARS to have its own identity, culture, flavor. I don't know what is America's identity, or culture, or flavor. If your only answer to me is baseball. Yeah I dunno.

So here goes my tips for students from any country, really, who will be living in EONMC America for the first time ever. Unless your country sounds like what I've described above. Then you probably live in America, and should really learn up the name of your country, as I'm sure that's the one thing your shitty school system has taught you.

Begin.

(Also if you're living in the South or the Mid-West I recommend you go kill yourself to save yourself the horror.)

1. They don't use the metric system. Celcius, meter, kilogram, liter, everything that you know that was good and easy in your life: gone. Everything you've learned in all your school years. Gone. 100 degrees boiling point, 0 degrees melting point? Gone. Buying a liter of juice at the grocery store? Gone. In place is Fahrenheit (which is like wtf), feet (sigh), pound (prepare to become much heavier, as if the Americans need it. Maybe that's why they have obesity problems), ounce or whatever the fuck it is they use for liter - I didn't even bother. You could learn their ways or stick obstinately to what people use worldwide. The glorious metric system. Or you could master both and be better than them in one more way. I chose this.

I'll try to keep it short from now.

2. If you're from most of Asia, or the UK, or Australia, or Japan (which are where all the awesome countries are) or anywhere else in the blue range, then be prepared. They drive on the different side of the road. That means you are always, forever, going to try and get on the same side as the driver. Embarrassing, but if your driver finds your international ways endearing then it's pretty cute.

3. Different movie tastes. There are going to be some things that they go, "Omg you haven't seen this yet?!? You have to see this!" False. You don't have to see it. Not everyone knows or have heard of that show, and you won't ever need to.

4. Walmart/department shopping. You can get everything there. Be prepared to pretty much never ever visit individual stores again. Because there are almost none. They are just big chain stores or department stores where you can get everything. Prepare for department shopping. If you didn't like shopping at Parkson, or Tangs, or Isetan, then you're fucked. Okay there's Forever 21 and H&M, exceptionally awesome ones. That's about it. Buy all your clothes there.

5. Very, very low malls. They have one floor or two floors at most. It's weird, and honestly very unappealing. The way it's designed is a lot like the Tesco and Giant hypermarkets that we have. U-ge-leh. Their malls will all also look the same, whether you're in Rochester or Washington DC. You'll feel the same. Probably that's why they never leave their country. They like it that way.

6. Okay good thing for once. Amazon, Ebay, online shopping. Love it, use it, master it. It will be your best friend.

7. Count on things to be reasonably priced, at least not overpriced as some are in Asia, and actually work/quality is good. Because they aren't ridiculously marked up. Things like electronics and personal care items. Oh and vibrators. Basically things that are used by the masses. I come back and I frequently find myself going, "Bah, this is so much cheaper in America." However, some things may surprise you. Some electronics may be cheaper to buy here, but you can always hunt for bargains online.

8. For people who live in tropical countries and are going over to the East Coast/Norther regions, IT'S GOING TO BE MOTHERFUCKING COLD. BRING AS MANY LONG-SLEEVED CLOTHES AND PANTS AS YOU CAN FROM HOME. But buy your winter coats and jackets there, because refer to 7.

9. Oh, exchange and return. Guess what? YOU CAN DO THAT IN AMERICA. They make it so easy for you too. If you buy stuff online, they even have a postage stamp ready for you to send things back. God bless them for that. You get to save/not waste a lot of money in America, make full use of it.

10. People there will not know where you're from, so always bring a map with you, or memorize how to tell people where your country is located. Start with like, where England or Antartica is. For the smarter ones you can start with China. You will have to repeat it a zillion times, so you'll be pretty good at it by your like tenth American contact. Also do the Americans a favor, especially if your country is not as well-known on the international stage, and go, "YESSSS MALAYSIA IS ON THE LIST" everytime you see your country appear anywhere in the vision range of the Americans, because most of the time it just slips right past them. It'll help, really.

11. They will think they are the best country on earth. Let them believe that.

12. Ditto with things like freedom and hegemony. It's okay. We are laughing at them on the outside.

13. They will say the stupidest things about Obama, that you wonder why the fuck it even matters when he's doing so much good for their country. Try not to punch them. Unlike them, you have a visa to not lose. They don't even have a passport.

14. You can use your credit card for a lot of things. If at big chains like Taco Bell, you can use it to pay for 1 dollar purchases. Smaller stores require a 5 dollar minimum or so. But if you're at a big store you can count on using your credit card.

15. I don't know what else. A lot of things to watch on the television, if you're into that sort of thing. They will also try to make a reality TV show out of everything, like mobs' wives, or some shit like that.

16. Oh, you go bowling as entertainment. -_-

17. I've heard this from many, and I can testify. You generally just get shitty haircuts overseas. Which is weird because it's not like the people in America have bad hair or anything. Maybe a problem of perception. So cut your hair before you leave home, or anticipate to cut it when you go home. If you're a guy I don't know.

I suppose that's all I can think of for now. If anymore, I shall update the list.

2011-08-04T08:55:00.000-04:00

"She spoke Spanish with a French accent, having difficulty rolling her r's, dragging them on the ground as only the French have the right to do. How do such flaws become beautiful in the right person? ... I asked if she liked the park. She said the survival of Gaudi's work is 'a reprimand to Franco'. Which struck me as one of those strong, stupid opinions that are endearing in their way."
- Ilustrado, Miguel Syjuco

I wanna tell you.

2011-08-01T16:38:00.006-04:00

So I was asking a friend, how do I release things that are bottled up inside, and of course the answer hit me. So here I am. So let's be brutally honest. It's been a while since I've been brutally honest.

I want to cry. At every possible thing. Have you seen a narcissist cry? Yeah it's bad.

The distance is impinging on me. I can't do this. It's too hard. Especially given the nature of us. I was okay with the games and power play when we were physically near, but now it just seems a lot like nothing. Of course I don't mean all this. It's the distance talking. And maybe I just don't like it as much as you do. Everyday it kills me to know what we have is based on that. Because everyday I feel like I can't do it anymore. Of course I don't mean all this. It's the distance talking.

I am compensating for all the two months now that I have not brought up the distance. I thought if I didn't, it'd go by faster. If I didn't, it would make the problems not real. If we don't talk about it, how is it real?

But it's real as fuck. And it's affecting me. Us. Scratch that. It's affecting me. But I don't want to tell you of course. Because I don't want you to start being self-conscious of all the shit you say around me, because what we have is based on all the shit you say around me. Then perhaps what we have is not right then? No. It is the distance talking.

You're happy. I don't want to ruin that. If I tell you the truth, which I don't mean, it'll ruin the high you are on. What kind of a shitty ass move is that. Why tell the truth, that will become the untruth in 26 days, when I see you again, snuggle up in your arms and everything is fine again? Why tell you that I really don't want to hear anymore about how you want to throw me around and make me obey you, if I no longer hear about the caresses after?

Exactly. I don't.

Included in the things I don't have to tell you is how upset I feel when I see the things you want me to be and do, but I can't. And how insecure I am when I see others who can, and just how much I do not ever want to feel this way, or be put in this position, and how much I enjoy being single again.

You do enough. To balance out the shittiness you pre-empted in me, to try and make things seem better. You listen to my rants, you keep me in your life even though we're so far, you care, and I know. So maybe I'm just the bitch here. Which is why it's even more important to not tell you.

Urgh I hate how I now write with my audience in mind. Raw emotions are never what they are when watched. Maybe it's for the better.

The red light district.

2011-07-31T11:01:00.000-04:00

Laptop is at Toshiba service center. Hard disk error of some sort. I brought it to the center atop the highest floor of Plaza Low Yat. I was cradling the metal child in my arms, its limp cords swinging back and forth as I ascend escalator after escalator. The multitude of vendors along the way that call out to me, whoring their services to me, offering to repair my baby for a small fee. I hated that it was so obvious. I ignored them, and pushed my way forward. What the hell does UG stand for? I ascend.

I got to the fourth floor, and on to the Toshiba service center. It was like an oasis of quieted whiteness amidst the hustle-bustle downstairs. The walls and floor were immaculately shiny. No gaudy, flourescent signs that said "UNLOCKING/JAILBREAK". Just serenity. I was in heaven. I was told to take a number. I sat and waited, as the person in front of me fills up some paperwork. I knew I was next. I knew what had to happen. I handed her over. Was made to put my signature on paper. It wasn't even to fix her. Just a diagnosis. A fucking diagnosis. I signed.

Yeah so basically I have no laptop. Until some unspecificied time next week. They got back to me pretty fast on the diagnosis, so I have hope in the time it'll take them to fix my hard disk. Or was it my hard drive. What's the difference. I don't care.

The unwinnable battle.

2011-07-22T13:50:00.001-04:00

For the past few days I have been in turmoil. It was over a decision that would change my life, the things I believed in and the way people would view me. Yes, it was regarding my religion. Literature.

More precisely, the topic of reading and books, and my love for one versus my love for the other. You didn't know there existed a difference between the two loves? Me neither, until the creation of ebooks.

To be more comprehensive, it also includes switching over from paper to electronic, because I was thinking of ditching my big and bulky organizer for the Calendar app in iPad, which I can also utilize to download books and read. God, just saying the words "download books" makes me cringe in old-fashioned disgust.

Also might I remind you I am a big, big Apple HATER and to make this purchase would be selling out.

But on to matters of the heart. Books. Paperbacks are my favorite kind. I've always hated hardcovers - I never got the point. I always thought it was purely pretentious, with no economical or convenience sense whatsoever for the avid reader. And those hardcover books with some sort of detachable paper sheath over it? Da fuck? Those were the most annoying, pain-in-the-ass things I've ever had to deal with. Read Nabokov's memoir in a book like that, had to transport it trans-atlantic, and then trans-pacific, cover edges were properly damaged by the time I had the sense to remove them.

So I am anal about my books, yes. I like them the way I like them, and anything more (like large-sized paperbacks won't do too. They can't fit in my purse, or even if they do, I would rather them not) is a sin. So imagine my horror when I found out ebooks were gaining popularity, and Borders was closing down. Does this portend the death of paperback goodness? And more importantly, where was I going to stand on this?

You say, you can easily do both.

No, I say back. You can't. Do you think the Darth Vader calls you over to the dark side, and then say oh maybe you can dabble a little in the Jedi Council, and then come back to the dark side? Oh maybe you can be both?

No. No you can't be. Once you cross over, that's it. You've contributed to the loss of a culture, a way of life, a period of time.

I'm being dramatic, but whatever.

My love for books is real. The way they fit in your hand, so lovingly, waiting to be read; the recycled paper that makes up the pages, the grainy, pulpy feel, so coarse, yellow and imperfect; the matte finish of the cover, feeling the ridges of the book title, running your fingers along it; the spine of the book, so steady and reliable, the thickness of it both a challenge and a delight; how you fall asleep with it splayed open on your chest, or resting on your lap as you check your text messages on a phone, which should remain a phone, and only a phone, and not a device for reading; how sometimes you make a grab for any random object to serve as a bookmark (I am using a bus ticket from my Moscow trip for Miguel Syjuco's Ilustrado); and of course, turning the pages of a real-life book, the sounds of the novel's plot flipping ahead, the smell of a thrill you will soon absorb, the font text so tangible.

All of that replaced by a machine that programs the sounds and actions of pages flipping to make it seem like you're not living a total lie.

I'm afraid I might be writing an obituary more than anything though, because they have gotten me. These soul-sucking corporate giants have struck right at the heart of book-lovers, at the only thing they could possibly cherish more than books: reading.

The promise of convenience, of having 3,500 books at your fingertips, of having it delivered to you wherever and whenever you want, as opposed to going out to a bookstore or waiting for your Amazon package in the mail, the promise of a much easier device to carry around in our little girl purses, as opposed to War and Peace, the promise of cheaper books, the promise of increased reading due to the convenience of it ... all of this tempts us.

Especially when my body is not exactly built for carrying War and Peace, or any other epic novels, for a long period of time. Or for the transferring of any heavy objects, such as the many, many books that would have piled up by the end of my college years in America. It's a pain in the ass already having so many things to store during the summer, and books are just stacking up by the year. My Dad suggests bringing some books home everytime I made the trans-Pacific journey home, but Daddy! Overweight luggage!

As an English slash Russian Studies slash History student, I have a heavy reading list for each class. I can easily get 5 to 8 books ... per class. I have four, five classes a semester. That makes for 40 books per year, the very minimum, and a whopping 160 in four years. Holy hell.

I am also a sucker for convenience, and if the iPad proves to be a one-stop center for my organizing, reading and Facetime (I am so mad that I'm getting this whole Apple jargon) needs, I might very well get it. It'd be nice to only have to carry one thing, instead of five.

What's annoying is that I didn't think I'd need an iPad until I started creating all these problems for myself. I like my organizer, I like books (as you can see). But now that I know I have the option to not have to carry as many things, I start to want them, and for a brief moment, my life becomes hell as I think about how I don't have them, and how I could have them. Consumerism sucks.

But I don't know. I don't know if I wanna give in to this sick need for convenience and portability. Maybe humans are meant to not have everything in one place, and to think for ourselves what we need, and how we wanna carry our things around. And the more I think about it, the more I can't live with ebooks. The idea of not being able to flip physical pages to get to what I want is a horror ... maybe I will have to ship home my someday, or carry less things in my luggage to make way for these books, to bring them back to my real home. After all, if they're real to me, I can do that for them.

Or I could use ebooks for these years of my life, and switch back once I finally settle down somewhere? But what do I do with all the books that are in my iPad then? Good God, what if my iPad breaks and all my books just disappear forever? But no, God, no! I can't! eBooks are disgusting!

I need to stop.

People and their bullshit nowadays.

2011-07-16T13:56:00.019-04:00

There was a time when criticisms and insults bothered me. This blog might even have witnessed this, way back then. And then I stepped over that bump. Major. I remember clearly when I was no longer bothered by what people said about me, when I could face the worst criticisms, laugh and move on - sometimes even taking a sick pleasure in it. I told myself I will never again be unnecessarily judged and derogated, even if it means secluding myself from a sizable section of society. I just didn't care anymore. I was way too comfortable with myself for that shit.

And I cannot believe this is happening again. All this belittling, telling me how to lead my life, pre-empting problems for me that I cannot even begin to see (yes because I'm going to spend all this time I have trying to solve problems that I don't even know are going to happen, instead of focusing on what is good for me now. Yes), telling me I'm despicable, a hypocrite, a disgrace to all things wonderful (this one's true), that I'm a fucking cunt.

And I have no real response to all that. The situation is just too implicated by emotions. Mine, and his. Minds have been made up. It was tragic.

In other news, I've also been called a "semi-functional autistic immigrant who will be lucky to touch shit with my hands" by an American. But I laughed off that one, and called the guy "cute". Stupid kids trying to fuck with me.

"What is the necessity for this show of might against right? No matter what, right will always prevail," - Ambiga Sreenevasan

2011-07-10T02:20:00.003-04:00

IGP: Police provoked, Anwar injured

Inspector-general of police Ismail Omar today defended the police's use of tear gas and water cannons against Bersih 2.0 protesters, claiming that they were provoked into action and used only “minimal” force to disperse them.

0:12 doesn't look very provoked to me...

On claims that riot police fired tear gas into the premises of the Tung Sin Hospital along Jalan Pudu – where protesters had sought refuge – he dismissed them as mere “berita angin” (rumours).

Ismail also downplayed the turnout of the protesters in support of Bersih 2.0, saying that the crowd only assembled at no more than two locations. He insisted that the crowd had only assembled at Jalan Pudu and outside Stadium Merdeka along Jalan Loke Yew.

Chinatown.

From Jalan Sultan to Jalan Hebat.

From KTM to Pasar Seni.

And of course, let's not forget Ottawa, Hong Kong, Australia (Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Canberra), Taipei, Osaka, Geneva, Paris, London and various places in America - New York, San Francisco, Portland, Washington DC, LA. I've also seen pictures of people congregating in Nepal and Egypt. On any other day these people probably won't even admit they are Malaysian.

Can everything that comes out of the police force's mouth not just be PLAIN LIES? Who the fuck are you defending anyway? A government that severely underpays you that you have to resort to the lowest order of corruption practices? Who can we trust, if not our police?

Another question: Where the fuck is our journalistic integrity? Are we really no worse than the slimy, underhanded dumbfucks behind Fox News? I am ashamed by how our mainstream media has reacted against the Bersih rally. If there's one thing this rally has shown me, it's the disparity between what I am reading and what is actually happening. I knew of this before, but I now know the appalling severity of how much the Malaysian people are being lied to. I literally could not sit still in my living-room as I watch the newscasters on TV3 speak about the rally like they haven't got their brains screwed in for them that night. Followed by of course dumb and less-than-mediocre reports about how the rally is affecting the businesses of the people, shots of empty stores and bus stations, interviews with people who all surprisingly oppose the rally because it is an "inconvenience" ... and nothing for the voices of people who support the rally.

In what universe is this objective news? And in what universe is this okay? Wake up, Malaysian people. News with purely propaganda purposes should be viewed with suspicion, not blindly accepted. When the TV3 newscasters had their "professional" faces on and proceeded to shat on the rally like their life depended on it, I think I puked a little in my mouth.

It is disgusting. And I can't say I've been proud of the angles that The Star has been taking on the rally, which is so obviously government-bias. Not only have we lost in every other respect to the other countries, we have also lost in our integrity. Safe to say I will not be applying for jobs at any of these news publications in the near future. I rather work for a small, unknown publication and keep my integrity, rather than bullshit my way to the top at the expense of the Malaysian people.

Someone should also really fucking teach our pea-brained Prime Minister the meaning of pro-reform. Has he had not has his history lessons? If he has, then he should know what happens when the government ignores moderate calls for reform.

I still don't know who I should be voting for in my next - and first ever - election. But I know who I am not going to vote for.

PS - I hope people everywhere - journalists, newscasters, politicians, police force - see what is obviously going on. Compare raw facts (photos, videos, testimony from people) with show of raw power by the government. If we, the common people, refuse to lie for the ruling elites, and refuse to accept their lies, that's when change happens.

I love this space.

2011-07-08T16:01:00.001-04:00

More than my Facebook, Twitter and Google. I blog so far and few nowadays, the point isn't pictures anymore, this is not a social networking site, so anyone who's still here must be here for a reason.

I guess I kinda like where I am in life right now. The impossible has been done, the bad kind of crazy has been minimized. I like him a lot, but sometimes I wonder just how much of me he can take. I'm impulsive, capricious, bipolar, messy, indignant ... and he is not the most tolerant of people. If opposites attract, I'm interested to see how this is going to work. The sex is great though.

Location-wise, it's just been really strange. This is my first real "summer", and it sucks ass. I'm more bored than I usually would be if this was not a "summer". I did my share of traveling already, and now I'm just bored. It's all too weird for me because summer to me doesn't mean what summer has meant to the other people all this while. I lived in summer for 20 years. My school year started in January. The sun sets at 7pm everyday.

I should go out and work, but I'm afraid if I do then I'm gonna miss sitting around on my ass, doing nothing. Maybe that's what I need. Lose it to miss it. Really wish life didn't work that way.

2011-06-25T13:34:00.000-04:00

Woo look at me I am so pretty in my picture because I use shitty low quality web cams to take pictures of myself and make the surroundings really dark but oh hey I can't really do that because of White Nights in Russia and then I use them as profile picture omg I'm so pretty yay I also try to tilt my head this way so I look sooooo pretty woooo ranked 94 in the nation wooo.

Only in Russia...

2011-06-14T06:39:00.001-04:00

Figured I post some photos since I am suffering from the inability to blog on time, or at all.

Me getting prematurely excited to finally be in the land of the Rus, which I love with all my heart. The country, the people (well... more on that later), the language (well...), the culture, the history, the literature - I love it all!

Getting on the whole tourist business right away. Pictured is the General Staff Building and the Hermitage (it's like the Met of St. Petersburg).

I now internationally stalk these square sanitary trucks.

I am temporarily a student of the Saint Petersburg State University, wooo! Putin and Medvedev were their graduates. My grandchildren will never hear the end of that...

Catching The Nutcracker at the historic Mariinsky Theater (where it first premiered).

Bear.

Its money can. Note how it's Winnie-the-Pooh-themed.

The Peter and Paul Cathedral, where almost all the tsars are buried, and - since 13 years ago - the remains of Nicholas II and his family too, who were slaughtered by the Bolsheviks and dumped into a river.

This place is just amazing with its history.

And historical figures...

Trotsky's prison cell.

I'd never dream of living or going to school anywhere near places where incredible events in history have happened. Its Russia's greatest treasure - and also its tragedy.

More animals on the street soliciting money from soft-hearted bypassers. Like me.

The inside of the Hermitage. Dare you believe it...

And to think, Russian schoolchildren take excursions here. Malaysian schoolchildren go to, I don't know, theme parks or something.

Well, I try.

More lavish palaces that we visited. This is Catherine's Palace, also summer residency of the royal family. Must be good to be royalty.

More rooms in pure gold, just because they can.

How badly the palace was destroyed during WWII. Destruction and restoration of Russia's heritage (the palaces, churches, monuments) are a large part of Russian history, culture and art. You cannot tell the story of these tourist spots without touching on how they were all practically devastated during the war, and were painstakingly restored by the people after. Up until today restoration work is still going on.

And you wonder why the Russians are so tough.

Imagine if you had to see the very buildings that defined your national history and identity bombed to the ground, right before your eyes. No one deserves that in history. Not even the people who bombed these buildings down.

The view from the Colonnade of St Issac's Cathedral.

Had to climb 180 bloody steps to get there, but it was worth it.

Inside the cathedral.

This place is amazing to travel. You can be a total philistine and you'd appreciate the architecture and sights. And if you're a culture and art lover, this place is heaven. Just hearing the endless stories about the royal family right up to the Soviet Union - it's a whole different world. It makes me wonder why countries don't appreciate their history more. Russia does it very well, if only because they've been through so much, and history is like a healing scar in their memory.

The people - ah, well, I was adequately warned that they're not the friendliest, and are prone to misery. But to this I ask, who isn't? We all have a Russian inside of us, and I can relate to mine a little more than everyone else.

I have no defense for the language, however. It is a torture, as is part of Russian culture. One year of Russian is simply not enough to give anyone adequate communication skills. If I don't put my stresses in the right places, they won't understand me! Pronunciation is impossible, knowing the difference between perfective and imperfective is impossible, not sounding like a retard is impossible. It's not like I do it very well in English either, but at least it's not damaging to my interaction with the world. It is a hard, hard language, and one of the most challenging things I've ever had to do in my life. Frequently someone quips at me, "You learn Russian, how can you not do this?!" in reference to some menial activity, like cooking, or setting up a tent, or something like that. Both of which sound just as hard as Russian, in my humble opinion.

Props to my school for such a well put together program. I knew the Russian department was awesome, I didn't know they were extraordinary. The amount of effort and attention to details put into this program has come off well. I feel sufficiently looked after here, but not in a way that stifles my desire to explore on my own. Or maybe I've just been a keen traveler. Regardless, the place is amazing, and with a program that's just right - this is turning out to be the greatest month I've ever spent abroad. Everyday I am doing something fascinating here, be it visiting an 11th century church, or Russia's oldest museum, or the house of my favorite author Nabokov (now that's my idea of a church).

More to come, as well as an impending trip to Moscow this weekend. This is turning out to be a great summer.

Alive in Russia.

2011-06-08T12:24:00.000-04:00

Blog soon.

For now.

2011-05-25T02:48:00.021-04:00

I really hate this dog-eat-dog world sometimes. This is your ambitious, overachieving Asian talking. I spent the end of my high school years doing all this thing so I can have the resume to get into top schools. And I thought that was the end of it, but apparently not. I'm still probably gonna have to do the same to get into grad school, and even if I decide to not go to grad school - there's still no escaping this. I'm still gonna have to calculate every move I make in the limited time I have to build up a good resume for a job someday. And so on, and so on.

God, I hate it. I hate that word sometimes. Resume. I'm not even spelling it right because I can't be bothered with the accented 'e'.

But of course, with all things I have emotions for, there is a fine line between hate and love, so I guess I also love building resumes. Still not spelling it right.

All I'm doing this summer is traveling, and spending a month in Russia under my college's summer program, which probably weighs nothing in a resume, but I like it. And I hate that I'm already thinking what I need to do in the next two summers I have, like how everyone is doing an internship or research - just something - when all I really want is to spend my summer in Spain, brushing up on my Spanish again until I can have a full conversation with someone. I also wanna go to Peru. I wanna write. I wanna help people who wanna write.

I hate to think that I might have screwed up my chances of working in journalism or publishing because I quit my position as news editor in the school newspaper, and decided to devote my four years in college to debate, just because I fell in love with it, even though it has evidently nothing to do with writing.

If life goes well, doing what you like should intersect with personal success.

I know I'm a lucky bitch, who doesn't have to worry about getting a job instantly, because my parents will be able to support me. I know I have the luxury of freedom and time to do what I want - even if what I want doesn't necessarily earn me money. I know I should suffer like common people do, and try to get a job as fast as I can, so I can be sucked into the whole race to earn money and survive and not die out on the streets, cold and hungry.

Because that's just the way things are. That's just how things work. You can't do the things you love, because you need money to survive. And for most people, those two areas never cross paths. Interest and money.

Bah I'm gonna stop here because this post is turning out to be so cliched. Again can't be bothered with the accented 'e'. I just wanna be able to stop worrying about what I'm gonna do for the future, which school I'm going to get into, what title I'm going to get at my job, and what I have to do right now to get it. I don't wanna worry about all that. I just wanna do what I have to right now. For now.

Living in the moment is the biggest achievement that I can ever hope for. I am so far from it sometimes, it's not even funny. I feel it when I'm by myself and content, I feel it when I walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, I feel it when life gives me this great big hug, I feel it when I take the subway to a place I wanna go, but those moments come so far and few.

I guess I kinda feel it right now too, being in New York, up at 3 in the morning, not giving a shit about anything else. It's so liberating, and that's the best feeling in the world.

What's the point in living if you don't wanna dance?

2011-05-23T02:38:00.001-04:00

The shithole in Manhattan has a name.

2011-05-22T17:44:00.000-04:00

It's called Harlem. I've been living here for a few days because I'm running low on money and I'm crashing at a friend's place, and honestly, it's not worth it. This place is fucking disgusting, I've never seen a worse place in such a fabulous city in my life.

In what world can a girl not walk four blocks to the nearest subway station without being harassed verbally every. single. fucking. time? In what fucking universe is it appropriate for men to point out your tits, or ask you what you're doing tonight while you're walking down a street? What the fuck kind of education are these people receiving??? How were they raised??? I don't know, and I don't plan on staying around to find out.

I don't know how so much shit can be concentrated in one area. I really don't. Am I supposed to be glad or sad that everything bad in life is focused into one neighborhood? I don't know.

I lived in Chelsea for a night when I first got here, and then Astoria in Queens, and I've been spending two weeks now walking around Manhattan - sometimes late at night. Never have I felt more unsafe than in Harlem. The horror and disgust I felt when I had to walk fifteen blocks, because I was confused about the train stops. Oh my God, seriously, who are these people? Have they not seen a yellow-skinned woman in their life? They're sure acting like it. I am seriously disgusted. That is the only word I can express for how I feel here. I have been harassed, hit on and stared at by people regardless of gender and age. You'd think the old people would know better - no. You'd think the women would know better - no.

And that's in the day. At night, it gets a hundred times worse. People talking loudly, violently, acting aggressively. Last night I heard someone breaking bottle after bottle on the road outside where I am living. When this happened in Queens, it was followed by police sirens - relief. Nope, not in Harlem, where everything is just so fucked up.

There is no "charm" about this place. Some areas are so bad that they have their "charm". I get it. Yeah, not here. Not in this shithole. Maybe if you're a 30 year-old black male, or 45 year-old white male, or Hispanic, or someone these people are afraid of. Not for a 20 year-old Asian woman.

When I stayed in a hostel the first time, I swore on my life I'd never go back again. Now, compared to this shithole that spans the entire neighborhood ... I think I'm considering moving to a hostel in a nicer area again. At least there are cute French boys there to keep me company.

Seriously even the subways suck. How can the subway system suck in New York City?? God just wants me to hate Harlem. It takes me fucking longer to get from Harlem to Midtown - both of which are on the same island, btw, than like Queens to Midtown - which is on a whole different island. But the subways are nicer, cleaner, come more often and not as crowded. Everything about my trip in this area has just been shitty.

Everytime I'm in this area, or even on the subway ride back, I have this look on my face.

I hope it sends my message across, which is "FUCK YOU GO AWAY I'M NOT INTERESTED."

Because if I try to say it to their face they'll likely whip out a gun and shoot me. Or stab me. Or punch me. Seeing as they have no respect for women, I would not put it past them.

The next time I am called out by someone again (which will probably be in the first 30 seconds I step out of my building) I feel like stopping them and giving them a quick lesson on how to be behave civilly. But of course there is that complication of me likely being shot/stabbed/punched. God I love it when I have no choice but to keep quiet.

I don't know how any sane-thinking woman can live here. I really can't. I'm getting the fuck out of here, even if I have to fork out more money.

Fuck me, I'm awake.

2011-05-22T04:52:00.004-04:00

Blah. I made a promise to my body that I will put it to sleep early, like 12 midnight, but I decided going to sleep was too much effort, apparently.

So I'll blog what I had in mind today, as I continued to roam the streets of Manhattan, New York. I saw three things happen today. Well, one of them was more like something that happened to me, but here:

1. A man proposed to a woman on the subway, on the R train, between 8 St and 14 St, in the carriage I was in. The woman said yes. Everyone clapped and aww-ed on the train. It was great. That woman's life was changed then and there. It's weird how it's not just our skin that separates our internal environment from our external, but how between me and that lady, there's a space between us that separates us emotionally. That woman a few seats away from me was probably experiencing the best moment of her life, and I was sitting there, feeling so happy for her, and just seconds before I was feeling glad to have seen the Financial District and I was ruminating on where to go next - and then he proposed, and then I felt happy for them.

And everyone else on that train, as a matter of fact. All these barriers between us, even if our skin decided to merge together or something. And just the diversity and the range of emotions on board - brought to hover around the same wavelength in that one moment because of the proposal.

2. A dog was running across me, its leash trailing behind him - I was in the Meatpacking District. A man ran after it, going, "Oh God, oh God" and as he turned the corner and saw his dog racing down the street, he yelled, "Stop the dog!"

I've never seen a dog gone loose before. Only in movies, never in real life. You never seem to grasp the gravity of a situation when it happens in movies sometimes, until it happens right before your eyes, and you see the emotions and events play out right before your eyes.

3. The white, dotted walking man came on, and that was the sign for me to cross the street. It was the West Street highway too, so it was serious business. I was the only one crossing the street. Everytime I do that, I just get the feeling that all the drivers' eyes in the car are on me. I mean, what else is there to see? The first and only pedestrian crossing the street, just as they see red. We gasp, we point in the direction and say, "He went that way!" and we stretch our heads, hoping someone did stop the dog.

***

I also went to the World Trade Center ground today. Visited the Memorial Center right next to it. Speaking of emotions, there were many that I felt. Came back home and watched videos of the attack footage, the news reports, and so on. It really is sad what happened that day, in more ways than one. The shock of the people on the flight, who were just planning on getting from Boston to LA - a route even I would one day travel. The people in the offices of the WTC, who were just doing their day's work. The firefighters who intended to rescue lives, but lost theirs. In situations like this, there really isn't much we can do, but grief and remember. "May we never forget" Not sure how I feel about people chanting "USA! USA! USA!" on the ruins, three days after it had happened, especially in retrospect of the events that would happen after.

I need to go to bed. No idea why my fucking text is over on this side. (woo fixed it)

Shitty on the inside.

2011-05-20T15:36:00.000-04:00

I'm a mess again. I'm grumpy, intolerant, angry, fussy, angsty, bored. So bored.

I need to take a break from all this. I'm disabling Facebook, Gchat, because I feel like I'm always waiting for something to happen there. I click refresh, I pull up my contact list, like my life depended on it. And I think it has. That's life to me when I am not distracted by things on the outside,

I need to find inner peace - as cliche as that sounds. I'm so restless, not in a good way anymore, and I've had about enough for this week.

I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.

2011-05-16T21:47:00.000-04:00

I have taken such a huge step in my life. Most people don't mean this literally, but I so fucking am right now. I have moved from a 24/7 (nevermind nighttime), 365 days a year (nevermind monsoon season), hot and humid country to ... well, basically, Siberia.

So yeah Siberia.

Before when I bought cute little dresses, or sleeveless tops, they were actually worth my money as I could wear them all year round. I never had to check the weather or temperature outside, and then - a bit of personal involvement here - stick my hand out the window to gauge how cold it really is (the temperature is hardly ever accurate, it's also a combination of wind and non-existent sun), and then plan my outfit for the day, and how many beastly layers to add on after the outfit.

And I mean, what weather? In Malaysia, there will be sun. There will be heat. Everyday. And even on days that there aren't, like rainy days or cloudy days ("What's that?" - an average Malaysian), it won't be balls-freezing cold. That's one thing Malaysian men never have to worry about, I can tell you that. Except when the air-conditioning gets too cold. Wow we are such wimps. Come to Rochester, and your balls will have an experience of a very different kind.

The only decision you have to make in Malaysia is whether you want to be sunburnt or not. Not like the thickness of your winter coat so as to keep you warm while not looking like a Matzoh ball all the time.

So back to my point. Eight months out of twelve, I won't be able to wear my dresses anymore. And I don't just mean skanky dresses (that is a problem on a whole different level - ie the partying level), I mean dresses that show even a little skin, like my chest, or 3/4 of my arms, or my ankle area, for God's sake. If I reveal my ankle area, that part dies of numbness, yes. Shoes become a whole problem on their own too. Let's not even start on that.

So now when I go shopping, I am still shopping like I live in a tropical country. Just because I still think I am, and the past ten months of Sibera does not seem to register in my mind as I reach for yet another summery dress. And then I'm back in Rochester, trudging and grudging my way through the snow, and I want to go back in time and shoot myself.

These clothes just aren't worth it anymore. Sure, I can layer some of them up, but they just look ugly. Maybe I just hate layers. Maybe I'm just bad at it. Either way. Ugly.

And it's not just the weather. It's that in college I don't do anything anymore. In Malaysia, I'd go out on weekends, to the bar, to a nice dinner, but sadly people don't do that here. I also can't get around, without cheap cabs or the ability to drive a car (let's not go into that), and that just makes my dresses very sad.

When you have to limit yourself in the things you get to buy, just because you have nowhere to wear it to, your life is just really, really sad. And I understand if it's a floor-sweeping, hips-swaying, bodice-hugging D&G dress or something - only Gods wear that - but we're talking about simple dresses here.

I'm really hoping that next semester if I come back - I hope I do, it's been iffy - I wanna be able to wear my dresses out more. Sometimes life should be based on your clothes, because they determine where you will go. If I stop myself from buying these gorgeous knee-high (okay let's be real, they're all shorter than that), strapless/spaghetti/sleeveless, chest-plunging, bareback dresses (okay, not all together, but you get the point), then I'm dooming myself to a life of eating Chinese food in front of the TV on weekends, wearing a sweatshirt that says "Rochester Debate" or "MKIS" or "University of Rochester".

So no, I will not stop buying these dresses. I will not stop buying clothes that will make me a very happy girl some night. I will not stop buying pretty things just because Americans don't feel the need to dress up and go out on weekends.

If there's nothing to do, then by God I will find things to do. Go out to dinner. A fancy luncheon. Throw a party in my suite. Whatever. We'll have a coat check for sure.

So that's it for clothes.

And now for a little session on men. Before, because Malaysia was my place, it was easy to hit on men. It was my turf, if anything I owned them. So I didn't have to think very hard - not much effort. And they also noticed me more, because I spoke good English, and knew world history - or something like that.

Here, it required a little more effort. Also judging by the way I am getting hit on here (when compared to the way it was back home), it definitely does require a little more brainpower. So back home, I see someone who seems like he's from Spain, maybe, I just have to put on the eyes, flash a smile, cock your head, and go, "Are you Spanish?"

Doesn't work that way here. Because chances are, he is not Spanish. He is American. And in America, you don't go, "Are you American?" because that's just retarded. And apparently here you can be put into an insane asylum if found harmful to yourself or other people. So yeah.

This was actually inspired by this really cute guy sitting next to me on the subway ride home. He was definitely my type. Pretty face, blonde (ehh not a fan, but it goes with the cuteness I guess), wearing a suit, boyish smile. Very, very cute. He was playing solitaire on his phone. So the way to approach men here in America is to just make a random comment on what they're doing or wearing, and then they'll reply to your random comment, and this paves the way.

Well. What the flying fuck could I have said to him, that would have made any remote sense?

"Interesting game of solitaire there."

"You go get that card, you!"

"Hi there, are you American?"

Yeah no. None of the above. I could compliment him on the umbrella he was holding, but there is also something else in America called the "restraining order", and I'd like to not have to experience that, so yeah.

So I stopped at my station, and he probably at his, and a very flirtatious banter did not materialize.

Clothes and men. Two of the enjoyable distractions in my life, now fundamentally changed. I'm not gonna say it's for the worse yet, although I sound like it, but maybe winter-shopping is a good skill to develop, seeing as many places do have winter, like Russia, and the fabulous places in Europe, so I'll have to deal with it someday, so why not at 20, when I can still laugh at my mistake?

Afterall, at 35, it won't be so funny figuring out winter coats. I'm sure I'll have taxes and an adopted child and other shit to worry about then. Joy.

Where?

2011-05-12T02:53:00.000-04:00

I just realize how many people are envious of where I am right now. Not like metaphorically speaking (for once) but geographically. People are looking at my photos and telling me they wanna go to these places too. And man, that was me years ago. That would have been me a year ago. I would have sat in front of a computer, flipping between her pictures, wherever I was, and wanted her life. Now that I have it, I don't even see how far I've gone, from my bed in Malaysia to this apartment in New York City.

And hey, I'm happy. I know it's always up and down with me, and the next minute I could be foaming at the keyboard again, but right now, at 2.58am, 12th May 2011, I'm content. I've been trying to keep it up, I really have. I hope I'm posting at most contemplative posts, and not depressing ones. It's really not that bad anymore.

I miss him/Rochester.

This is love.

2011-05-11T02:22:00.007-04:00

My love for shopping reemerged. Let's call it love, for want of a better word.

And I think I know why I love it so much. It shows me my desires can be satiated. That I'm in control. That if I want something, I can get it, and if I don't want it, I can just as easily discard it. Being in America has impaired my sense of control of my surroundings and emotions, and shopping lets me regain that.

For once, for once I'm able to get what I want. For once, I'm able to want what I can get. These two finally intersect. Oh, for once. A dress is not something that ignores you when you want its affection, when you want it to wrap itself around you and make you feel loved (by the general public ... male). A dress is loyal. It is mine and mine only. It does not choose bitches from Vermont over me.

But I know, that I'm always happy when I walk out the store.

I will never be truly happy until I stop wanting. Until I can stop reaching for the top shelf, the sale rack, the glass case. Of course I understand that, but until I'm able to return to that state of nonchalant content, I have my Mastercard.

Even if it's just for a while. Even if it's only passing. Even if it's illusory.

Yeah, capitalism is not going anywhere, so just quit it.

2011-05-09T19:55:00.001-04:00

FUCK TURNS OUT MY LUGGAGE LIMIT IS ONLY 23 KG AND 20KG TO RUSSIA FUCK MY LIFE SHIT I PACKED FOR 32KG FUCK HOW THE FUCK WAS I SUPPOSED OT KNWO THAT MAXIMUM WEIGHT ALLOWED AND PLEASE DO NOT EXCEED WERE NOT HE SAME THING WHO THE FUCK IS SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT NOW I'M FREAKING OUT BECAUSE I PACKED FOR 32 FUCKING KG AND NOW I'M ROYALLY FUCKED WHY THE FUCK DID I PACK SO MUCH TO AMERICA IN THE FIRST PLACE AND WHY THE FUCK DID I BRING SO UCH BACK NOW I'M GNNA HAVE TO DISCARD IT ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

PS - Although my freaking the fuck out was very productive, I have devised a plan. I'm leaving New York City on May 28th, so on May 27th I am doing what is called, Judgment Day. Or it could be earlier, I don't know, depending on my plans. So tentatively May 27th. This will be the day I decide (sobs) what to (sobs) throw out and (sobs) ship home. I have a large grey suitcase (correction: fucking large grey suitcase) and a filled up duffel bag. I will leave New York City with only one large suitcase ... and possibly the duffel bag as hand-carry, but it can't be too heavy. So that will be the plan, and hopefully I don't fuck it up.

NY fucking C

2011-05-09T17:36:00.005-04:00

Past few days were great. Why can't he see that all I wanted was to be wanted, just like that. Then I wouldn't have to whine my way through eight months. Eight months that shouldn't have happened, but happened anyway.

In New York City now. Got waxed by a Ukrainian lady. Embraced my inner SATC fan and lined up for Magnolia cupcakes.

While wondering how the fuck did I spend 100 dollars by 3pm in one day. Fuck me. Obviously the wax didn't help.

I'm having a packing crisis. Hey ho, what's new. It's just so hard because I'm caught between being a materialistic pig and a dreamer who wants to be able to pack everything I need into one (albeit very large) suitcase and leave if I have to. I'm kinda liking the whole 44 pounds limit idea.

And I vacillate between the two roles so much, like within four hours I kid you not. This can't be good for my mental health.

I was watching this movie The Ice Harvest a few days ago, and the only thing I got out of it was that if I had to elope (well, or if I was given a lot of money by the FBI to drop everything I have and start a whole new life in some obscure place, like Kumala City, or some obscure name like that, and have a whole new identity) the first things that would come to my mind are (in this order): what about my laptop? What if people find shit they shouldn't find and publish it? Oh wait, that'd be my blog. What about my parents?? My family?!! I'd miss them.

And that was it.

So yeah I could totally do it. I mean as long as I have the money to build up my new life and be a materialistic pig in my new life, why not? There's actually a really fine line between a materialistic pig and the dreamer who wants to travel light; it's called infinite resources.

If I knew I had enough money to shop forever, I'd discard of things along the way. Like insects that shed skin. Sure, I'd sit in my sea of clothes, having a hard time deciding which to throw out, recalling the memories I've had with them, envisioning future potential with so and so dress, crooning to them, but once I step into a store and see all the beautiful clothes that await my luggage space ... fuck the old, bring in the new!

No, seriously. I discarded like a pile of clothes in this hostel I stayed in last night so if you're ever in a hostel in NYC and you find some satin tops, they were mine thank you very much. Yes, I thought satin tops would make my luggage lighter. Obviously I was wrong. God help me why am I so dumb. You'd think for a slut like me I'd have less clothes to pack, but I just end up packing more so I can diverslutify.

Ah, I love this city. But it'd be greater with great company... because I'm running out of money. Fuck.

PS - I discovered international shipping,

PPS - Oh, a story untold about my trip to NYC. Or rather, pre-story. So I conveniently missed the first train I was scheduled on, but it was nice, because he took me in, and then the train I took the next day ... hit someone on the tracks. Some people were drunk and thought it was a good idea. Train stopped for an hour almost. I definitely arrived two hours past my scheduled time. I hate drunk people who mess with train tracks.

Hurricanes and casualties.

2011-04-30T18:38:00.000-04:00

They are tough and distant, they can't care less and they are completely foreign to us. They say one thing, and they do another, and it confuses us to no end, but we stay and wait anyway. And then there's the hurt. The hurt that comes from all the broken promises, that to them were not broken, or made, or promises in the first place, that to them mean nothing, but to us meant two weeks of waiting for that one phone call to be made, among their many, to take us out to that place they said they would, or watch this movie they said they wanted.

It's not that they completely mistreat us. On the contrary, they can be the kindest things on earth, all nice and sweet, asking how was your day, and if you got your paper done ... but no more.

And here we wait. We crave. We hanker. We wish for that one miraculous moment when they would turn and notice us, and know that we're sitting there, hoping he'd stay a little longer for us, even when he doesn't have to. But he leaves anyway. And our day is gone. We leave too, in defeat.

Why though? Why do we stay? And linger? And second-guess and read into things? Because of the nights, when all's been said and done, and we find ourselves in tears, hiding from their view, but they come over and pick us up, and hold us in their arms, and tell us that they do like us, but they can't do so and such, and so we have to be good, and listen to them, or else risk losing them, and we don't want that.

They press their foreheads into our tear-stained cheeks, and they tell us what we want to hear. Words go right into our ears, followed by their heaving breaths. It doesn't matter what they say anymore, because we are just glad to be in their arms again, and that everything is going to be okay. They tell us again, in all earnesty, they they like us, it's just, and so, but yes.

And of course, we cave. We give in to them, and we stay just that bit longer. At the back our of heads is the familiarity of this situation. Of how many times this has happened in the past. And how many times we've been on that same lap, sobbing softly because something similar went wrong, and that same, low, paternal voice tells us it's just, and so, but yes.

They like us. They really do.

But we cave in anyway. We play into their big, strong hands, even though we know they are leading us on, we know the whole point of it was to slip their hands up our shirts and enter us in our weakest moment.

We said no. We won't let them. Almost playfully.

And they stand before us, tall and domineering, daring us to say no. They give us the chance, say no.

The damage is done. For nights to come we will think back on it, on how they held us close to them, almost like we were their property, theirs to care, theirs to love.

They walk off satisfied, glad to have gotten what they wanted.

It's torture, but we will hang on forever, for the sake of these moments. They come far and few, but we want so badly to relive it that we trick ourselves into thinking that there's no way he's not sincere this time or it's okay if he lied it doesn't matter we don't care or that things are okay now.

But after eight months, you see the pattern, and you know things will never be okay. And then nostalgia becomes diluted with this dull, throbbing pain in you, recognizing your helplessness in the face of all this, knowing you will never be free again.

There is just something nice guys cannot give us sadistic girls. We will get along with them well, we will love hanging out with them, we'll call them sweet and adorable, we'll say they are the nicest guys in the world ... and we will pray that they find someone, because we know we'll never be the one for them.

I talked to a friend once about how I don't want to hurt this guy who likes me, because I feel like I'm a hurricane, and he'd be my casualty.

And all this while, I was the willing casualty to someone else's hurricane.

More shit.

2011-04-26T23:10:00.000-04:00

I'm getting a lot more sleep than I did during school, yet I still feel the same level of shittiness as I did back then, and I still complain a lot. In fact, I probably complain more. I guess the more you're given, the more you want.

I am feeling shitty, so no happy postings. I just had my own death wish stare me in the face, and it was narrating to me, for seven minutes, why I can't do anything about it. Why I stayed for so long. Why everything was so hard. Why things will never be the same again. I hate feeling helpless, that's the one feeling I'd like to not have, because it's all illusory, and you're never really helpless, but once you think you are, there's no getting out of it. And I can't get out of this one, not tonight. It's staying for good.

You're never supposed to be with the one you're supposed to. You never like the one you're supposed to. Life just sucks from then on.

I was not happy. Why do I constantly toy with the line between pain and pleasure. I couldn't look away. It would have been equally painful.

I deactivated life.

2011-04-20T13:54:00.000-04:00

I swear, it's like a recurring sickness. I am still not okay with this place. There are times when I feel okay, and then there are times when I feel so fucking blah, like now. But I've never felt great. I fucking hate this place, it's so God-awful, I want to leave and never come back.

I'm sick of having conversations for one. I'm sick of wanting to be wanted. This place is fucking cold and distant and unwelcoming, just like its people. I'm sick of reaching out into thin air, nothingness, because this is exactly what this place is. Nothing. A big pile of nothing.

You know what's your problem, America? You care too fucking much about how you look to other people. I can never be myself in a place like this.

I swear I can live anywhere in the world, except here.

Bloody. Perth. I can live in bloody Perth, and not here.

Send me to fucking Cuba, or North Korea. At least misery is justified there.

I have no connection or relation with anyone here. It's been a year. I've tried. In the past two, three weeks, I've been trying so hard. The door was slammed in my face a couple times, but I kept going, and I tried. For God's sake, it's my fucking last two weeks here. Possibly forever. Don't I deserve a chance? One last gratification? What changed? Why are things so different than before? What happened to my good mornings and hellos and byes? Why can't you man up and tell me what's really going on, instead of giving flimsy excuses and shit? Fuck you.

If I don't get out of this place, I'm going to go insane. No one here understands anything, or tries to. They live in their own stupid world, and they never get out. Nothing I have has meaning here.

I can't write here. I can't love. I can't do the things I love. I can't do anything. My hands are bound. It's a sadomasochist relationship, but my master is too shit to provide the aftercare.

This place is so confining and stifling. Yet I come back, again and again, I tell myself it'll be okay.

Well I'm sick of trying. It won't ever be okay. We're all just fucking lying to ourselves anyway.

Shitters.

2011-04-20T01:42:00.000-04:00

Fuck my life. It's been 13 days since I updated?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Oh my fucking God someone take me out and shoot me by the decree of bloggers or something?

Well. I don't know. Apart from the fact that I'm retarded and can't update blogs and don't give a shit about the small amount of readers I have left (not true, I actually love you guys for still reading me - probably the only people I love with no ulterior motive in this world. Insert Oscar speech here), so more about my life ... I've been getting a little bit more sex. That's good. I'm a little less stressed out. That's good too. Coming to the end of the semester in like two weeks or so. Gotta pack and get my shit together for New York City, St Petersburg, and then home.

I'm also putting off a huge decision I need to make for later in the summer, or until I get back home. :/

America continues to frustrate me, what's new. People here are so judgmental, God. It's getting harder for me everyday to be who I want to be. And it offers so little in return too.

Eh, at least I update my Twitter? At least I'm still surviving? At least I'm somewhat happier and doing better than before?

Bah. Peace out. Will update more when I can.

American military history.

2011-04-08T03:41:00.004-04:00

Is a course I will be taking next semester, and I'm really excited for it, for multiple reasons. It was said to be an easy class, I get to interview U.S. Armed Forces veterans instead of a final exam (I love any reason to be interviewing people I find interesting, and I'm not going to say I didn't make up such reasons in the past...), apparently a lot of cuties and military peeps are in that class, and I'm also sort of using this class to gauge how much of an interest I really have in history, as opposed to history in my fields of interest (Russia, Russia, Russia) (and parts of Europe, centered around where WWI and WWII took place). I also want to see if I'll actually enjoy studying about military, or if they just look good in their uniform...

I am also looking forward to the videos where tanks charge through the streets destroy everything in the way and blow up stuff.

I'm just trying so very hard to not get holed into one area of interest, with the exception of Russia Russia Russia, because it's my major now, or take courses that I've already covered before - a class like Hitler's Germany, or the Period Between WWI and WWII (totally made that up, but it could fly). I took a course on Irish history this semester - never done that before - and absolutely loved it. That's what I want to be doing in college. Exploring different areas and taking classes I can never do anywhere else (coughUKAustraliacough).

Between completing requirements and my overarching interests though, it's becoming harder to do that. I wanna be able to devote some classes to taking courses that I like, that has no relevance to my major whatsoever, but at the same time, I also want to study abroad in Russia, so it's a case of breadth versus depth, and they're both so equally enticing.

American military history. This is going to be interesting. Can't wait for the tanks, and the army boys who will be falling into my lap.

PS - Life is going great. Living easy, living free. I am having so much fun just pissing people off and being able to rise above it, and then just watching them fall all over themselves trying to get to me. It's great. The men situation is going surprisingly well, and I'm starting to see remnants of the old life surfacing again, where I take center stage in my life and how my day is going, and nothing can touch me if I don't let it. I'm starting to gain control again. My ability to not give a shit has reached awe-inspiring levels, and I am proud. My thought processes are now as follow: "Oh no, they think I'm immature and annoying ... oh wait, I don't give a shit." "Oh no, he might be banging this chick and I care... oh wait, I don't." "Oh no, people talk shit about me and don't actually like me... oh wait, IDGAS. And when the fuck is my food coming."

And so on.

I only value the opinions of people who are better than me. Like Einstein. And Nabokov. And I highly doubt people at that level have time to bitch and hate, so this tells you a lot about people who do.

Life is great when you know you're going to hell.

To those who have traveled far.

2011-04-04T05:51:00.000-04:00

Words can't explain how much I miss my family right now. I want my two brothers to be here with me, I want to sit pointlessly in the living room as my Dad watches golf on television, just because I want to be near him, and my mom ... I just want to be see her again. I love her so much, and she's just the rock of the family. I understand it so much more now that I'm away, just how much she's done for the family, and if I could take back all the quarrels we've had and tantrums I've thrown at her as a teenager, I would. She's done so much, and endured so much, that I dare say she deserves to have and say and do anything she wants in the world. I hope my brothers learn what I never did when I was young. I know, I'm being sentimental and shit, but I can't help it.

School ends in three weeks or so. I know I should fly home the second I can, and spend it with my family that I love so much ... but ultimately, I shouldn't. I know I love my family more than anything, and that comes first, really, but I need to fight the need to run home every moment I can. There's a fine line between love and over-dependence, and this is just the moment in my life where I have to assert my independence, and go all the way.

I'm spending my summer in New York City, then St Petersburg, and then I'm going home.

This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but also the best I can for myself, I know it. I need to move out of my comfort zone, and I know most people never get the chance to, so I should be glad.

I'm not a hypocrite or anything. Of course it will be fun to be frolicking around the greatest city in the world and in one of my most favorite countries in the world, there's no denying it. But I also want to cry myself to sleep every night thinking of my family and how much I want to be with them right now. It's a double-edged sword. Especially when the two edges are on opposite ends of the world, and it takes 30 hours of travel time to get to each other.

I love them to death, and I don't need a reason to. Because they're family, and I can't wait for the day I go home to them.

Feeling good.

2011-03-30T14:16:00.000-04:00

Gotta write it down when I can. I feel great. Despite the fact that I have to take an HIV test later, to process my visa application for Russia. Oh yes, Russia. I'm getting more excited by the day. This is my summer plan:

1. Chill the fuck out in NYC in May (I need to find a place to stay too, anyone leasing for the summer?)
2. St Petersburg for June
3. Home, bitches, for July and August

Three of the best places in the world. How lucky am I? How do I have friends when I have such an awesome life, really. Don't you all hate me?

But I do feel great. Better, I feel free. There's no better feeling than to be liberated. I think it's a yardstick for how awesome your life is. Take writing, for example, and I am totally stealing this quote from a professor I heard at a lecture. She said that it's after getting a rejection letter from the publisher, and knowing that you still wanna write, that's when you know you're truly free.

Same with debate.

Same with men.

It's when you know that you can be hurt and broken and defeated by men, but that you'll survive, that's when true liberation comes. When nothing can touch you, and you're invincible. I used to be like that. Fuck Eduardo. Fuck Alex. I brushed them off and went on with my life. Sure, I fell for them hard, and sure, I wish I had a life with them, like the two girls with them are probably doing right now. But nothing can compensate for the relationship I have with myself - the greatest one of them all. We are both very much in agreement with each other. Sure, we argue sometimes, and we name-call, but we sincerely love each other at the end of the day. We also possess the Hitachi Magic Wand HV-250R, otherwise known as the best creation on earth. We're good.

But yeah, HIV testing in 45 minutes. I hate needles.

Take.

2011-03-29T05:28:00.000-04:00

Me.

Home.

I am breaking down again.

Highway to hell.

2011-03-27T07:22:00.002-04:00

I totally should be writing a paper on how writers and artistic freedom is affirmed in the face of an oppressive regime, but I digress. I want to talk about this conversation I just had that both infuriated and delighted me. Gotta love it when something arouses feelings on both ends at the same time. The line between pain and pleasure is a fine one, and I enjoy walking that line.

Anyway, so this person I was talking to goes on and on about my immaturity, both in person and in my modes of thinking. If he read this now he'd totally disagree with that sentence, and say that I am completely telling it wrong. To which I will say, suck it.

I am writing about this now because I feel like this is a problem I've encountered my whole life, except now people have more legit reasons than "MZ u r a slut" and their motivation for bringing me down is not just jealousy and spite. Now I am encountering people who genuinely have a problem with what I say, the way I think and the way I behave, because I don't conform to what is "mature" or "acceptable" or "normal" by their standards ... which is really to be depressing and boring. Funny thing is when I become depressing and boring they all think I'm trying to commit suicide. Silly Americans.

Let me start with the infuriating part first. I was miffed, of course, because I don't believe this person - or anyone else who is trying to unload their bullshit on me, as a matter of fact - has known me well enough to make any sort of assessments of me. There's a difference between saying "she is a dumb bitch" and saying "she is a dumb bitch who has serious problems with her foundations of thinking and the way she behaves as a human being in society".

Because saying that just dismisses so much about me. Maybe, just maybe, if we had spent a little more time talking and getting to know each other, outside of the few barely lucid moments we have before and after sex, then maybe you'd know more about where I came from, how my society functioned, how that shaped who I was, how hard it was for me to finally find my calling in a society that cared so little, my thoughts on literature and history, social causes I feel passionate about and why. Then maybe you'd see that what you perceive as my "apathy" will not seem so useless after all, and you'll see I'm capable of doing good for this world, in my own way. Maybe, you would.

I know now I sound like I'm being horribly specific to one person, but I have many others in mind as I write this post. I just haven't slept with any of them, so obviously they don't matter, ha. I can say with assurance that except for a handful, no one I have met in America thus far has spent enough time with me, or seen me in my element, to know even half of the person that I am. I had a friend - whom I have known the whole year long - tell me that he really only knew me a week ago when we sat down one dinner and talked about life. Not the stupid fucking debate community, or who won the fucking NDT, or how this argument clashes with the other argument, but life. You know what that means? Yeah.

But say these people claim that they do know enough about me to make such assessments, to pass such judgments, then sir, I give you my finger. Now comes the part that pleases me. For all people have to say about me, my maturity and way of life, I know that I've accomplished much more in my life than they have or ever will, just because of the sheer will and determination I know I'm capable of. These are the things that no one can take away from me. I know that I have at the age of 13 developed an interest in writing, and have stuck to it for eight years now. I know that at the age of 15, I had painstakingly written, edited, proofread and laid out a book, behind my parents' back, because I couldn't get their consent. I know I did it again at the age of 17. I know I've been on on national television and radio, interviewed by numerous publications, stood before crowds, and spoke about my passion for writing and where it all started. I know that by doing so I have inspired many to do the same. I know that people write to me, telling me they want to be like me (big mistake, fyi).

I know that I finally found sexual liberation after I ended my four-year relationship, and I can get any guy I want in my palm, just because I believe that I can. I know that I have never given a shit about what people think about me, and for that I am also truly and completely liberated as a person. I know that I have never repressed who I really was, or changed myself in any way when I meet new people, and for that I have found the greatest friends on earth who accept me for who I am (and absolutely hated my guts when they first met me, of course) while these people can continue to have phony friends whom they have to always censor themselves around. I know that there is nothing I love more in this world than to see me be myself and fuck everything up, while these people who see this as "immature" will never, ever know the feeling of being able to laugh at yourself whole-heartedly.

Because, really, chill the fuck out. It's not like I'm going to turn all Hitler and kill like six million Jews because I am so utterly liberated and enjoying my life. I'm just a person who remains happy in the face of a shitty society, because I know I'm too awesome not to. I'm sorry you don't feel that way about yourself, I really do.

I know that I will continue to do great things with my life, and I have ideas that I will bring to fruition, while all of you can just sit on your asses, philosophizing about life, and how to be normal, and how best to chastise those who are not.

Now isn't it sad that the person you think is "immature" has done so much more than you, and feels so much better about herself than you will ever be with yourself? Yeah. I know that for a fact, because everyone has a child in them or a crazy, nonsensical side to them, and they're not afraid to show it around me since I am infinitely worse and do not judge. They're not afraid to yell at the top of their lungs to me, or say fucked up things to me, or tell me their innermost desires, or break into a song when they feel like it. It is sad then, that I am the only one who will see that side to them, and they will forever have to keep it in check around people.

And all the above is only a small percentage of who I am, so I guess in a way I can't blame people for not seeing it all. Because it's just impossible. That's the ultimate problem with people, I suppose. You can never know someone in their entirety. And not everyone is as easy to read (or pretend to be. Yeah some of us actually don't like pretending). Some people have numerous and thick layers that you have to get pass before you get to know who a person really is, and not many people have the patience nor the desire to get there. So we're forced to stop at a point, and if you've arrived at that point by just sleeping with the person for six months with no real attempt to know the person well but choose to pass judgments on them anyway, then that is the point both parties will have to deal with.

But it's a sad, sad indicator of who a person is, really. I do it too, of course, where I am forced to decide if I like a person or not just by face value. But because I know the complexity in knowing a person like me, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. But it can only get you so far.

The good thing though, is when people actually get pass those layers. And it's not impossible. It doesn't even take long, really. I did it with someone in a day. A month's possible too. Sometimes it just takes that right moment, for you to see someone in their element, or a side of them that just makes or breaks their character. The good thing is when you get there, then you make friends for life. Friends who know your flaws, but know you're too good to not be in their lives.

But of course, what do I know. I'm just talking garbage here. I'm a stupid, immature teenager who doesn't know anything about life, despite the fact that I have probably met and interacted with people far more different and diverse than they have in their homogeneous society and the fact that I have done more things than these people have just because I'm willing to put myself out there.

Lesson of the day: if you wanna discredit me as a person, at least delve into my history, and learned where I came from, and what I've seen and done. Spend more time with me, and see what I like to do in my time, or at least wish I could do (but can never, because of my busy schedule). Or at least, tell me about yourself, so I can understand you more and where you came from too. Understanding is not just a one way thing. It takes two. Maybe if we could actually sit down for more than 15 minutes and not try to undress the other person (totally my fault, by the way) this wouldn't happen.

But well, what do I know. I'm juvenile anyway, and I have a 6-paged essay to write, but instead I sat down and wrote all my thoughts down. So I should go do that now. Good luck with your lives, peeps. Live and let live. If I die, please be sure to play ACDC's Highway to Hell in my funeral. Is that not normal? Well go fuck yourselves then.

Violet Hill.

2011-03-22T10:51:00.000-04:00

I don't want to be a soldier
Who the captain of some sinking ship
Would stow, far below

If you love me, won't you let me know?
If you love me, won't you let me go?

I fucking love Coldplay.

I just can't do titles anymore.

2011-03-22T10:07:00.000-04:00

Okay, I suck again. I've become such a failure at updating my blog.

But it's 9 in the morning, I'm all showered and dressed, I look good and I smell good, I'm ready to go out into the world, so I feel good about myself. I actually feel the best about myself in the morning, unless of course I spent the night before hammered and my "day" starts at 4 in the afternoon. As fun as that is, it is also not.

So let's see, what has been going on. I was turned down for sex again last night, oh joy. I don't see the point of having a fuckbuddy if I can't even get so much as someone to hold me when I feel like it. So sexually frustrated. Then again I don't see why I'd get so worked up if it really was just a fuckbuddy thing, and I don't see why if it was really just a fuckbuddy thing I'd turn down the numerous men - guys, not men, they're all guys here - whom I could have easily slept with to satisfy my sexual needs. This is sexual frustration, right there. This is how it looks like, and it's staring me in the face. Just passing guy after guy whom you know would sleep with you in a heartbeat, but not caring enough anymore to do anything about it, yet wanting that intimacy so much.

Bottomline is I'm dumb, and I have some figuring out to do. No surprises there.

No one told me it'd be this hard, and I guess if people did I wouldn't have believed them anyway. Adjusting on the outside is easy enough, but there's just so many things on the inside that I need to figure out. It's not homesickness, it's a self-crisis.

Okay so I only decided to blog because I thought it was early, and I'd be happy, so I'd blog happy stuff, but I launched into some background information, which was apparently depressing. So let's do more of the superficial happy stuff now.

I wish I can remain as happy and carefree as I am at the start of the day throughout it. But as the day goes on, shit happens, I have to interact with people, and external feelings, and all that stupid shit, and then my refreshed happiness becomes co-opted by real life, and everything sucks again.

But right now it really feels like I can do anything. Maybe even homework. Definitely should be doing homework. I just appreciate the things I have in life a lot more now, I'm very sure of what I want and what I have to do to get it, and I just feel like I can do it all. Alas, these things never last, in fact I'm starting to feel it subside already, and in place come the doubts, the insecurities, the fear, the hesitance.

Okay, I definitely should be doing homework. I bid you all a goodbye for now, and hopefully the next update won't come too much later.

I will do my paper, and go to the gym.

2011-03-13T20:13:00.000-04:00

I feel fat, and disgusting, and fat. Literally all I've done today was wake up (that is an achievement), heat up Chinese leftovers (I overdosed when ordering so I had leftovers to last me FOREVER ... or two days), ate said Chinese leftovers, read a chapter of my book (which gave me Stalinist nightmares, damnit), went back to bed (and had said Stalinist nightmares), then now I'm up to read another chapter or so.

I feel fat and disgusting.

After CEDA (my last debate tournament EVER ... or for this semester) I am hereby making two resolutions:

a) To go to the gym
b) Be more involved in all my other activities, which have been sidelined to the fringes this whole time. I gotta work this out soon.

This semester I made some very wrong decisions, and put way too much on my plate. Like the case of my Chinese order-in. It has resulted in me not being able to be there for a lot of other things, which I didn't like at all.

Let me go on whining about how fat and disgusting I feel, and how I should go to the gym. Urgh I feel so fat and disgusting, I should go to the gym sometime.

I'm going to have such busy four days ahead of me. I've got some interviews lined up, a paper to write and miscellaneous homework to do, some Renaissance events to help out with and I only say four because on Friday I'm leaving for Binghamton for a (almost) week-long debate tournament, which is just going to kill me off in terms of workload. I wish I could just say, fuck this paper I don't give a fuck I'm gonna do things MY WAY now but truth is I do give much of a fuck but an even sadder truth is I end up doing it my way anyway ... which is to hand my papers in waaaay later than given. I don't know how I get away with this. I have to stop.

Anyway, on to my paper, and then a meeting later at 9.30.

Work in progress.

2011-03-12T16:51:00.000-05:00

Not gonna lie, this is going to be my like hundredth attempt at trying to rebuild my life here in the States. But it's an attempt nonetheless, and like all attempts, they should be ... attempted. God I'm so eloquent. So I know my blog has been depressing, I'm sorry I only feel like writing when I'm depressed, and I'm sorry you have to tell your friends that you frequent this blog which is suicidal at best, and repetitive at worst.

I'll try to do less of that - the whole sounding like I'm gonna kill myself thing - and maybe more of life, or at least the less depressing bits. I could tell you about the time I bought a ticket the night before for NYC...

Went there, saw NYC for a bit...

Missed the Thanksgiving parade by just that bit...

Then got on a bus to DC, and jumped into a car right at this juncture...

Me after some 6-hour train ride and 4-hour bus ride, decided the night before.

Met up with true love...

Camwhored, a lot...

Had awesome Chinese food...

Made the hugest mistake of taking the 5-hour energy boost with her, but a great mistake it was...

Went back to NYC after two days...

Why yes, Italian food was good...

Saw the Guggenheim alone, loved every second of it...

And then went back to Rochester a happy person, and told myself I'd set things right. And so yeah that failed, time and again, all my attempts to set things right failed. But I'm gonna keep trying, and this is me trying. I'm gonna be honest, I don't know how to. I don't know how I'm going to go about doing this, or where I'm going to start. Same old story everyday. I'm lost, and confused, and stupid. I walk into walls, I walk into STOP signs, I walk into traps and holes and then I fall down. And then I just have to pick myself up everytime. I am being broken down and defeated everyday, but the important thing is I tell myself I have to pick myself up everytime.

In Malaysia, I had my family and friends, my writing and the city. Here, I have a different version of the things I had. I don't know how to piece them together, or if they can even be pieced together.

I can only keep going, put myself out there, fail and try again, fail and try again ... one day, something's bound to work. And when that day comes, all of you can go fuck yourselves. Because I will be back, bitches.

Not enough.

2011-03-11T18:50:00.000-05:00

Why is it never enough? Why is it never enough that we've had a good 20 years, 2 months and 11 days if right now life this second sucks? Why is it never enough to know you don't want a relationship deep down, when right now it's being denied to you? Why are words and intentions never enough, as much as you want them to be, if words and intentions don't materialize into something?

I really do wanna know. Why sometimes, some things are just not enough. What about us that drives this sick need to want more even if we know that what we have is enough? It's no use telling us children in Africa are starving when at the same time Taylor Swift songs tell you that it's hard to be something your boyfriend misses. (I know. I know. How did my life become so revolved around Taylor Swift. Fuck America.)

My ego is defeated. Truly. I have never seen it so frail and weak, all shriveled up in the corner of my brain, or wherever egos are supposed to go to die. Do the past two years mean nothing to me? What about my ability to get anything I want, because of my looks and brains (it's true, so shut up)? Why can't the mere thought of having all these be enough? It used to be, now it's not. I've said before that history is weak, the past is stupid, but now I see that without access to it, all I'm left to work with is this whiny, confused child. I gave up. I've stopped trying to calm her down, to make her stop crying, to tell her she's worth something. All it took was one photo to shatter her self-confidence and throw her into a state of uncertainty about herself. Funny how her own past does nothing for her, but the past of others impinge upon her, almost destroying her in one moment. Fuck America.

Why is it never enough to just know? Why is it never enough if a bold gesture was made in one moment in time, when something out of the ordinary is done, which sweeps you off your feet in that one moment, but in the next, just as quickly as it came, this bold gesture that proclaims of words and intentions, sinks away into oblivion, reduced to just another event in the past?

I wish it was enough. I really did. I wish it was enough to wish that the whiny child in me would stop crying. I wish it was enough to know that everything is fleeting, so fuck taking anything seriously, but in the end, it's assurance that we want, that something that hurt us won't happen again. That's why it's never enough. Because once we're hurt, we think it's going to continue. And we preempt it, make life decisions around it and all that's left to suffer is the whiny, confused child in us.

I wish words were enough. But then again, there will never be enough trust in the world to make me believe his words.

This is my hug to you.

2011-02-28T13:24:00.000-05:00

Fuck me in the face. I gotta stop updating my blog every ten days, I know I know. I'm actually doing this for someone on Twitter, who said I needed to update my blog, because it's like a hug to him in his difficult times. I felt his pain, because probably just last week I felt so incredibly down, like I needed a hug too, but I was not given one. Which is just sad. That there's no one here I'd want to ask a hug from, or who would probably give me one when I said I needed it. I thought about it for a while, and it just made me even sadder. Back home I definitely did have plenty of people to smother. So if you have people you can hug, right now, be happy. You're in good hands.

Life sucks. Yeah, sorry Twitter person, this is probably not much of a hug, is it? It's like a hug with thorns. Because right now I feel like my life has way sadder moments than it does with happy. I've given up trying to find the reason why. Maybe it just is. Maybe some things just are. Maybe this sentence doesn't need to be.

I'm always caught in that place where I want something I know I really don't. Every. Time. But I get upset anyway, just because I can't get it, and then when I extrapolate this desire, only to find that at the other end of the line is non-desire ... I sink into a life crisis.

Godfuckingdamn this. Maybe if my vibrator came faster I wouldn't be in this crisis. Stupid online store based in PA whatever that is.

The problem with being happy.

2011-02-18T03:58:00.001-05:00

It's a very problematic situation. It's so slippery and fleeting that you sometimes wonder if you should even bother at all. But we all bother. We all want to be happy. And ultimately it feels like everyday, every moment of our lives, we're on some search for happiness. Somehow.

And that must really suck. To be constantly chasing something that can never be truly obtained.

You'd think that once I left my home, away from the bounds of family or rules of any kind, I'd feel liberated and happy. Truth is, I felt a lot more liberated back home, when I didn't have complete freedom of what I can do and where I can go. Yeah, how the heck did that happen.

It's not that I'm never unhappy back home. I was. But it was a different kind of unhappiness. It goes back to my point of liberation. Back home I never attached happiness to any specific thing in my life. Happiness was just there. Existing. Isolated from me. And so it was always beyond my own control. I recognized that happiness was fleeting, just as much as one-night-stands are exhilarating in the moment. And then in the morning there's the whole walk of shame and all that and you know you're supposed to dissolve the exhilaration you felt from last night. It was great, alright, run along now.

The problem with happiness is that it's so, extremely, fleeting. And so when you attach it to something in your life, especially if it's starts with a "m" and ends with "an", it's not going to work. Because then it starts to take a form, it becomes more concrete, and it just seems like something you can grasp, and that you must grasp, and that if you don't it'll be the end of life as you know it.

You're just trying to stretch out something that didn't have the elasticity to start with. Happiness should be formless, shapeless and nameless. It shouldn't take the form of anything, or be mediated to anything, or be expected to do anything, even.

I started out my day pretty shitty. I hadn't slept the whole night, I was working on the newspaper, and I had woken up from a brief nap at 8.30am to the fact I had class in an hour. Class came, still felt pretty shitty.

Okay a little context. I was stressed out precisely because of this issue of happiness. Before I thought I was happy, doing all these things I'm doing now, which I feel passionate about. At the same time, things were spiraling out of control. I had no time for myself, I barely got sleep, so while I was doing all these fucking great things, I also saw my life unraveling before me. I saw myself falling behind, unable to keep up with myself, just being cranky and tired and stressed out everyday, and I asked myself if NOW I was truly happy doing the things I do.

And I couldn't answer myself.

So it was at 8.30 in the morning, at such a low point, that I thought I had lost all motivation to live (figuratively).

I asked for sex, and was turned down. That little bitch...

But as the day went on, things started going uphill. Things just started feeling better. Class was still horrendous to get through, because I was clearly tired, but I didn't feel as demoralized as before. The drive to do things came back to me.

And it felt great because it wasn't anything or anyone that restored my happiness back to me. It just came back. Being able to recognize that is a great feeling.

I'm trying to make happiness as light as possible, but attaching all these expectations to it (likewise the other way round) just weighs it down so much. And it in turn will weigh you down too.

It might also be a case of overachieving here. No, it is definitely a case of overachieving. And that's saying a lot, because as it is my standards for overachieving are pretty high.

But to spend every night of the week just stressing out about a different test, three different papers, and meticulously examining every detail of the layout of my newspaper pages, that's just downright workers abuse.

Before I only had two goals in life: to write, and to fuck. Those were great goals.

I'm not saying I don't like my life now, or what I'm doing now. You know as well as I do that I love what I'm doing now, and I wouldn't give it up for the world. But I need to somehow find a way to weave "liberation" in there. I need to feel free, while not feeling free.

Because the danger otherwise is I'll start attaching happiness onto something, just so I can grasp it, even for one second, fooling myself into thinking that one second is enough. Just so I can feel something. Oh, what a silly human need.

And then once it starts to take shape, it can become anything. Larger than life and unassailable, ugly and deformed, all-pervasive and permeating everything, turning on you and working against you ... just as much as the times it makes you giddy and high.

Of course, no one can completely do that. We can't all detach happiness from the things in our lives, and just let it exist outside us. No one can be truly liberated.

No one's perfect, but I was pretty damn near.

Report.

2011-02-16T02:02:00.000-05:00

Wow when you're a creative writer and you name your blog post "Report" you know something's wrong.

On the contrary though, life is good. Or at least, stable. Maybe that's the word to use. Stable. Especially for me anyway.

I just felt like updating this to let you know how I'm doing so far in this shitty journey we call life. Which is stable, as I've tersely pointed out.

I'm having work left, right, center. Saying this reminds me of this Soviet song I was listening to today (in class, not just at random) (though I would do that...) which went left flank! Right flank! Center! I think it was a battle for the happiness of workers or something like that. But yeah this week's especially hectic. I have a test/paper due on alternating days, until Monday. And I'm upping the ante on debate work. Pretty sure I'm using "up the ante" wrongly, but it'll turn out right anyway.

I feed on stress and caffeine anyway. But then there are times when I just wish I could have been there for something ...

Men-wise I'm fine too. Or at least at peace. Which is cool. His hands feel nice.

I've started on a mission to underthink. Pretty much everytime a red flag is raised in my head, and my woman brain starts to completely blow things out of proportion ... I undercut it. Just like that. I stop. Reel myself back into the right now, and stop obsessing about the what ifs. It's both the simplest and hardest thing in the world. And I've been pretty successful thus far. And I hope if I do it often enough I'd stop overthinking altogether. Sometimes I sink into depressed moments, but I think it's more stress and lethargy than SEPs. But then sometimes I can't tell.

Random thought of the day is how I wanna speak better Mandarin, or just proper Mandarin. And how I miss Manglish/Singlish. And how my Spanish is kiddish, and my Russian is laughable, and my Malay needs to be revived.

But yeah. That's my shitty journey. Right now it's a straight road, no bumps ahead, pretty smooth drive.

Please let this not be the calm before the storm. Please.

What am I doing?!

2011-02-09T01:36:00.000-05:00

No, like, really. Sometimes if you just stop to wonder what the fuck you're doing with your life you can feel pretty shitty. Even when things are good.

I just ... I don't know what I'm doing. I don't. I'm on this upward path, getting better at the things I do, and really enjoying the things I'm doing, except at the same time I can just feel this large gaping hole staring at me. Everyday. Every moment. And I don't have time to stop and stare back at the gaping hole and try to figure out what it all means, because I literally don't have the time to. I don't have the time to write this blog post right now. I should be going to bed, so I can get a lot of hours of sleep, because tomorrow I won't, because I just have these things to do. Always. Constantly.

Yet at the same time, I'm missing out on so much. And I don't think I'm okay with that. I don't think I'm okay with missing out on going to events on campus, spending time with my friends, whom I barely see as time just flies past us, and just plain going to the mall, or Walmart, just to get things I need. Things. I. Need. I don't even have time to buy the things I need.

I don't have time to get coffee, because in my free time slot today I had to conduct interviews for my articles. Interviews after interviews. Questions after questions. Worries after worries. I don't even have time to get coffee, my lifeblood, the thing that keeps me going. I felt like I was going to die in class, but I just had to keep going.

And now, the clock is still ticking, and it's ticking against me. I don't have time to be sitting here, I have to go get some sleep. And not because I like sleep, or that humans need sleep in general, or that sleep is a pleasant past time to me. I'm getting sleep because tomorrow I won't, because I'll be working on four newspaper pages, all the way till 9 in the morning, because I wanted to. I felt compelled to. I needed to.

My interests and passions and enthusiasm - they're getting ahead of me. They're all out of control, and I can't hold them back. I want to do everything, I like everything, I think I can do everything.

I want to freaking triple major. I want to study abroad. I want to contribute to the things around me, and at the same time, I want to feed my own mind. I want both, but I don't know if I can have both.

Time is ticking.

I'm worn out. But I don't even feel it. I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I came here, having a hundred things I wanted to do. Now I'm doing a thousand, and not even half of the things I planned are in there. I wanted to teach, I wanted to start something new, I wanted to know and understand what was going on around me.

Now I learn what is going on around me from stupid. fucking. philosophers. I'm so sick of it. I want to bring things down to my level, to me, just for a while, so I can go out there and fight the big fight again, but I can't. I can't leave. You don't understand. I just can't.

I'm not exactly faring the best in the emotions department as well. I don't know if I'm happy, or just not unhappy. Every step I take, I feel scared. It's not even a step forward. I'm just marching on the spot. But it scares me. I can only shrug the fear off everytime it comes on to me. I don't think, I don't want to overthink, I want to take the situation just as it is. I don't want to know motives, intentions, sincerity ... because they scare me. Because I would want to know more. Because I would think about it.

I can't write this any longer. I need to go to bed. So the day can start, and I can keep going.

So, let's just fall in love again.

2011-02-05T11:47:00.000-05:00

So today for a brief moment of time, I wasn't actually filled with intense, throat-lunging hatred for Taylor Swift. I might even have gotten an insight into how she works, and the whole point of her existence in this world. And surprisingly it is not to provide good music to the world.

I've always despised Taylor Swift, because I think her songs plant all these false hopes into stupid girls everywhere, completely overdosing on puppy love, making them think when they're 15, there'll be a day when there's a fairytale, where someone will choose them over the girl in short skirts and high heels, and other ridiculous things like that.

But it was for the same reason that T. Swift redeemed herself in my eyes. Precisely because she plants false hopes into people's lives, because sometimes we need these false hopes, if only to give us ... hope.

I found myself singing her song "Superman" today, and if you don't know, the song goes something like this:

"I always forget to tell you I love you ... I loved you from the very first day ...

I watched, Superman fly away,
You got a busy day today,
Go save the world, I'll be around

I watched, Superman fly away,
Come back, I'll be with you someday,
I'll be right here, on the ground
When you come back down."

... so yeah. Completely stupid and inane, with a fictional character to boot, and a chorus that's sooo generic that it's begging people to relate to it.

Well, guess what? It works.

I sing the song - I like the song - because once it comes on, it puts a smile on my face. And for 4 mins and 31 seconds, I see myself in this perfectly happy utopian world, usually in this field of daisies (what spells happiness more than seeds cross-pollinating?), throwing my head back in laughter at this permanently funny joke my perfect boyfriend is telling me.

Completely stupid and inane, I know. Against the backdrop of daisies, too.

More so because I've never wanted that happy utopian world, I don't want be surrounded by cross-pollinating seeds, I don't want a stupid boyfriend, I don't perceive any men in my life right now as "Superman flying away" and if I had 4 mins and 31 seconds with a hot guy trust me I'd be doing a lot more than this.

But it doesn't change that having this picturesque moment still makes me all happy inside, gives me hope that there are so many more amazing guys out there to fuck, maybe someday in a field of daisies too. Or you know the savannah. I don't care. I'm not picky.

So when the song starts up, and then at one part goes, "Tall dark and beautiful, he's complicated, he's irrational... something in his deep brown eyes ..." this is where my mind camera does a slow-mo shot of the scene between us, the moment he makes me laugh, just because he's so perfect.

Isn't this moment just so unrealistically perfect?!?! I love it!

And so I love songs that conjure up this 4-minute happy, perfect, utopian moment. Sometimes it doesn't even have to have a guy in it. Even if there's a guy, he's usually nameless, faceless, soulless in these moments. Or it can just be you, in this 4-minute world, being happy. Like Uncle Kracker's "Smile". It makes you wanna skip and dance and hop through a sunlit streets, smile like the sun, sing like a bird, dizzy in your bed, spin like a record ... for no reason whatsoever.

Despite the fact that I used to attach a guy with a name, a face and a soul (hah, close) to that song, when he left my life, his traces in this song left with him. And so the song is sacred again.

Another such song? Let's Just Fall In Love Again by Jason Castro.

I picture this sort of smooth-running musical to it, of two people trying to perform a whole day in their lives in that 4 minutes.

Let's pretend baby, that you've just met me, and I've never seen you before. I'll tell all my friends, that I think you're staring, and you say the same to yours.

And oh! We'll dance around it all night, and then I'll follow you outside, and try to open my mouth and nothing comes out right.

How the fuck is any of the above supposed to happen right?! Exactly why it can only happen in melody and words. The scenes and images conjured up are so improbable, just like "Superman flying away" that your brain can't help but isolate these elements from them, and fill in the blanks yourself.

I'm having goosebumps from how eerily happy these songs make me. Happiness flows through my veins! It's like drugs, but in the form of pop music.

This free fall (fall!), got me so (so!), kiss me all night don't ever let me go!

So yeah. T. Swift. Not so bad after all. Overdoing it a lot, but sometimes that's what people with no other talent have to do, I guess.

Maybe some day I'll create some bizarre scenario for her other songs, and I'll be able to resist lunging for her metaphorical throat everytime she comes on my roommate's iPod. Maybe.

When the world feeds you Adderall...

2011-01-27T07:20:00.000-05:00

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.

2011-01-26T10:24:00.001-05:00

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

2011-01-16T04:50:00.000-05:00

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.

2011-01-15T15:13:00.001-05:00

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.

2011-01-15T13:33:00.002-05:00

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.

2011-01-13T06:26:00.001-05:00

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.

2011-01-13T00:14:00.005-05:00

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

2011-01-09T14:47:00.000-05:00

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

2011-01-03T00:36:00.000-05:00

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.

SH Day 10

2010-12-29T18:02:00.000-05:00

I need a freaking project.

It can be:

a) Getting a dog - not possible. Dorms don't allow pets, except for like fishes. That's not gonna help.

b) Run a marathon - but with a packed schedule I can't do that. It's not fun having a section of the campus newspaper due in five hours AND feeling tired from the gym.

c) Those stupid modeling competitions you have so often in Malaysia - well, obviously. Not gonna be in Malaysia. Or else I might actually think of joining those stupid modeling competitions as my "project". How hard is it to look pretty? On second thought maybe that look of disgust you are giving me now is right. I've taken professional photos, they suck, and I don't ever wanna do it again. Let's scratch this.

~~c) Fuck I don't know man. Plant a tree?! No. Too boring. Scratch.~~

~~c) Baby.~~

c) Travel! Yes, but only during Spring Break. Maybe during the weekends. Sorry Debate team but I really don't need to be going to five tournaments next semester. A two-day trip to New York City for shopping and culture will be nice.

These are just tiny "projects" - for lack of a better word - that I want to undertake because I need to clear my mind. Not a full-scale let's-save-the-children-in-Africa thing, which would be for later.

d) Okay I'm out of ideas. It is also 6.42am in the morning, and I'm doing this to get my mind off things. If you have suggestions, no matter how exotic, maybe like train snakes to snake dance ... or something.

To be frank, self-healing is not going well at all. I may be home, and I'm a lot better than I would be if I was in Rochester, but this still happens. It's all fine and dandy when I get to walk down the street in a dress, smiling at the sun (and have it smile back), doing twirls and shit on the sidewalk, looking pretty - God I love wearing dresses, why is it that the one thing I really needed from America is the one thing it can't give me. If I had said I wanted Asian food I could still have gotten it - but once I'm home and all alone, dressed back down to my old t-shirt and shorts in bed, it creeps up on me. Was my heart just not really in this enough to make it work? Maybe 10 days is too early to judge.

At any rate, I am enjoying the moment for what it is now. Just because I won't have sun for the next three months doesn't mean I'm going to stay at home and mope, instead of going out and soaking it all in. Heck, when I saw that it was still bright out at 4, I opened the curtains and did a Hallelujah.

Oh Malaysia, how I'm gonna miss your never-ending summer. I've grown up here, and you've turned me into a never-ending summer too. Now I'm gonna have to brace the winter, but until then...

Here comes the sun,
Here comes the sun,
And I say,
It's alright.

SH Day 8

2010-12-28T07:50:00.002-05:00

You want the truth? Here's the truth.

I think about you ... a lot. I really do. I think about us, not really in any location, or doing anything; we're sort of in this vacuum. I think about what you're doing right now - halfway across the world. I think about your favorite songs, your favorite things... you're such a dork.

I can't help it. I'm miles away - make that thousands of miles - but I'm always reminded of you. Maybe because your name is such a fucking common word it's everywhere. Maybe because every song reminds me of you, like those cheap movie tricks. The only way this can get worse is if your first name was ... Koala. Because I've been seeing that around an awful lot too.

It's really bad, I know. You're not alone in this buddy, I'm scared of myself too. I don't know what's worse. The fact that you don't feel the same way, or the fact that I'm obsessing about how you don't feel the same way, or the fact that deep down inside, I probably don't feel the same way too.

Man, this is so fucked up.

SH Day 5

2010-12-25T23:28:00.001-05:00

So many things has happened since Day 3 of self-healing.

Just picture me sitting on those airport chairs in, my cheek resting my fist, and I'm frowning. I am in Rochester.

Now picture me in the Chicago airport. Then in the Hong Kong airport. Then in Changi.

That was me, for 30 hours. I don't think me being annoyed at every little thing - like this girl talking to her friend about not being compatible with her ex-boyfriend hence they broke up, I'm sorry but, I've thought a lot of bad things to do to you - would have been conducive to my self-healing process.

I've landed in the motherland, I've gotten very confused at some of the things that work here, I've gotten pissed at my how the weather works on my hair, I've passed out from jetlag, I've seen family, I've been disappointed by some things here, I've wanted America back again, I've ate enough food in one day to last me for thirty, I've discovered - and am quite sure of it now - that I truly want things I can't get ... just a whole bunch of little things that were enough to overwhelm.

Will check back some time soon. I think I'm going shopping today. Will be glad to see the unhomogenous variety of things to buy, but will probably be disappointed in some ways. I also have no shoes to wear here, because I am smart. It's so debilitating to not have proper shoewear. Bah.

Dear Karen,

2010-12-22T21:20:00.000-05:00

If you're reading this, it means I actually worked up the courage to mail it, so good for me. You don't know me very well but if you get me started, I have a tendency to go on and on about how hard the writing is for me. This, this is the hardest thing I've ever had to write. There's no easy way to say this so I'll just say it. I met someone. It was an accident, I wasn't looking for it, I wasn't on the make. It was a perfect storm. She said one thing, I said another. Next thing I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life in the middle of that conversation. Now there's this feeling in my gut: she might be The One. She's completely nuts in a way that makes me smile, highly neurotic, a great deal of maintenance required. She is you, Karen. That's the good news. The bad is that I don't know how to be with you right now. And it scares the shit out of me. Because if I'm not with you right now, I have this feeling we'll get lost out there. It's a big, bad world full of twists and turns and people have a way of blinking and missing the moment, the moment that could have changed everything. I don't know what's going on with us, and I can't tell you why you should waste a leap of faith on the likes of me. But damn you smell good. Like home. And you make excellent coffee -- that's got to count for something, right? Call me.

Unfaithfully yours,
Hank Moody

***

No joke, I literally choked up reading this letter. Either I'm getting sappier, or I really, really like Hank Moody and I can relate to him. Girls, isn't this the bad boy you want to turn good and fall for you? Well, Karen did it. And she did it WHILE looking like a Greek goddess. Hey, I'd fuck her too.

<3 Hank Moody!

SH Day 3 - Honesty is definitely the best policy.

2010-12-22T17:45:00.000-05:00

Sometimes your physical reactions (or lack thereof) can tell you a lot more about yourself than you'd like. They might not tell you accurate things about yourself, but they can certainly make you feel shitty.

Think about how in a normal moment of your day you'd feel hungry for Chinese food (yeah me), nervous because you haven't handed in a play due two weeks ago (also me), or you'd feel like taking a dump (still me) ... but if in that moment you're told something earth-shattering like, your husband cheated on you, you'd feel none of the above. You'd stop feeling hungry, or nervous about something that doesn't really seem to matter to you now, and bodily functions cease in that moment.

You know what'd be a total mindfuck though? If you don't expect to have your bodily functions ceased. If you think you're fine with your husband cheating, because maybe you do it too and you're fucked up like that ... but in that moment you realize maybe you're not.

This should not be linked back to me in any way. I am not married, to anyone or anything, and if I did I would probably not be okay with cheating. Hence why I will not get married. Because I don't believe love is ever incentive enough to stop a man from cheating, a stupid misconception of marriage and true love and the "ONE PERSON 4EVA" thing. Maybe it's the kids, maybe it's the fact that she didn't sign a pre-nup, maybe it's fear of being frowned upon by society or going against the norm ... but it's never love. Okay I'm gonna stop spewing my life theory all over you now.

Likewise when you feel utter happiness, like lying in the arms of your loved one in a bed of roses or some shit, you'd probably not feel hungry for Chinese, or nervous about your paper, or that you need to shit. Which helps a lot if you also want to have sex in the bed of roses.

On to my life. I was honest today. Yay. I also had great sex last night, which was kinda what I was worried would derail my self-healing journey. But it was fine. Probably because I was honest, and got a huge chunk of information off my chest. Hey, so, I kinda would mind if you slept with another girl, and I kinda might not want to sleep with you after ... see, that was easy. Got it out right away on the first try.

Heck, no. It took me weeks. I am such a fucktard.

Anyways, if you think the theme of today's post is "physical reactions make you feel shitty" you are wrong. It is actually "questions". Isn't this self-healing thing fun.

I've been thinking (I can hear you crying, "Noooooo") and sure, I have a lot of questions for him. Like, why her and not me? Did the situation change, or was it the people? But I never did ask - and I never will, because a) I don't have the guts to b) I'm afraid of the answer c) I'd have more questions = bad c) these questions really don't mean anything. They probably won't make me feel better or worse, they won't change things and it's not something I need to know, ever. They're just questions for the sake of questions. They won't contribute anything to my understanding of me and him, much less to my self-healing process. And once I understood that, the questions ceased.

I don't feel like there's anything from this situation that needs to be understood more. I feel like I'm at the end of the line already. I used to say I want a car crash, I want a car heading for a crash ... and I think this is it. I'm at the crash. I'm looking at it. And it doesn't seem too bad. Maybe one day some part of the engine will explode or something, and I know normal people would run away now - because they'd tell me to, but I'm staying put. I'm not abandoning the scene until something bad does happen. That's just how I roll.

I just feel like this is us - if there is to be an us. I'm lying in his arms, he's pressing his lips to my ears, singing his strange rock songs that I'll never understand. It was a beautiful moment, and that moment is all there is to us.

don't say a word just come over, and lie here with me.

SH Day 2 - All kinds of secret

2010-12-21T18:49:00.002-05:00

Two observations about American malls:

1. When you step into a mall, you can literally feel like you're in any other mall in any part of the country. (Or at least on the East Coast, which is all I've ever traveled to.) It's just all the same to me. They look the same, feel the same and - best part over here - they sell the same things. It's like if you took Ikea and multiplied it across every town, every state. Everyone would have those same little stools they sell, and things in the same shade of pink or blue. It's not like in Malaysia where we have like tonnes of smaller shops selling cheap their own kind of stationery or hats or whatever. In America, you kinda just know where people get their stuff. Macy's, JC Penney, Sears, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, CVS ... and it's the same in every town, every state.Their corporate giants are so good that they've completely obliterated the need for any small businesses. It's really like Ikea with its mass production of things, except imagine an Ikea that sells food, home and office stuff, electronics, health and beauty and is located in every single town you can name, and you get Walmart.

It's like American retailers are meant to create clones. You'd know right away where someone got their clothes or Christmas decorations from.

Yes so I just came back from the mall. I don't know if I've mentioned here about how I lost my desire to shop, but apparently I didn't lose it with Victoria's Secret. I almost bought 7 things from their Secret Garden collection because of the $35 promotion, until I made myself remember I hated their Secret Garden collection. They have other nice fragranced lotions though. But I'm not gonna continuously pay $20 for a bottle just to smell fuckable. Or maybe I will.

Man. I feel much better now. I am healing, day by day, slowly. I hope what I'm about to do later isn't going to completely derail my process. That would really suck. And no amount of Victoria's Secret fragranced lotion is going to help that.

"Winners are simply willing to do what losers won't." - Sign in Million Dollar Baby

PS - Right. Observation 2: People REALLY like taking their own fucking sweet time in lines here. I'm sorry but I have never seen a line get held up by so many mothers consecutively, shopping for Christmas presents. There'd be a line of ten people behind them and they'd still have the nerve to ask if they can get more discount if they do this do that bla bla bla ... God. It's a pet peeve of mine to see people taking all the time in the world in a line. Like when I'm waiting in line for ice-cream and these girls just start talking to each other about their hair or something stupid like that, instead of doing what they're supposed to, which is SCOOPING THE DAMN ICE-CREAM. I was so mad I had to go sit back down for fear that I will pummel them to death if I don't.

So yeah, lesson of the day is don't stand in line with me. I can be one impatient motherfucker sometimes.

Day 1 of Self-healing

2010-12-20T14:08:00.001-05:00

Classes are over, exams are over. I officially have no external obligations.

And so today will be the day I start with the process of self-healing. To "find myself again" if you will. I didn't want to use that phrase at first because a) it's corny b) I'm still in denial of what's going on.

Let's use the word "remember". I just want to remember who I am again. I looked back at my old blog posts, written just as I came to America and ... I was funny. I used to be funny. And sarcastic. And self-loathing, but at least it was in a funny way that people would enjoy reading about. I enjoyed it.

Now all my blog posts just seem to feature me sitting in an empty room staring at the wall. This process of self-healing is to enable me to get out of that room and start going out into the world, kicking little children again or something, you know.

I don't know if I need to find myself, but I just know I've been feeling pretty lost for a while now.

And so the road starts here. Today. Now. I'm going to give my room a good cleaning, rearrange my closet, and then sit down and do some reading.

It appears I also need to take a shit. Maybe this is God speaking to me about doing a full detox. Cool.

PS - Oh, I will also try to include an inspiring quote whenever possible. Like this.

“In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” - Albert Camus

What a badass that Camus is.

Thank you!

2010-12-19T16:37:00.000-05:00

Let me take a moment here, and thank everyone who has been writing to me recently. Despite my absence of pictures, surprisingly, I'm apparently getting a lot more readers. Maybe I'm that ugly.

I'm sorry if I didn't reply you (I probably didn't, I suck) but it's really nothing personal. I mean, I barely reply my friends' messages. Like if someone from my childhood e-mailed me I'd just be like, oh okay that's great ... what's for dinner. You know? So don't hate me too much for it.

But it's really nice of you all to write in to me, and tell me that you love my blog/books, just to even know you're reading it. Also to everyone who's been telling me to stay strong in my moment of weakness, I really appreciate it.

There is no better love in the world, than to be loved by strangers.

:)

xoxo

Questions and paths.

2010-12-13T06:23:00.000-05:00

Because sometimes there are so many you just have to write them all down.

Let's start with: What do you want?

Now let's watch shit happen.

Do you want a relationship? No.

But if you don't, why does it hurt? Because of some wrong decisions. I'm fixing them.

Say you've fixed them, and it still hurts. What do you do? I'll fix them some more.

Still hurts. What now? Look at the situation and see exactly what's so wrong about it. And if I'm happy, then I should just let things be the way it is, and not push it any further.

Why don't you want a relationship? Because I know I just can't function in one. Even if I may have a tiny desire for it now, I know it's just going to end up badly. I know it.

What are we talking about again? I don't know.

Start over: what do you want? I just want to be happy.

What do you think is going to make you happy? Before it used to be men, in the plural. Now, I don't know anymore. I can't tell you for sure, and I don't want to be telling you until I'm sure, but I'm thinking it might be a "man", in the singular. But at the same time, it might still be men in the plural. I don't know. 50-50. I don't know what I want.

Are you happy now? Yes.

Were you happy before? No.

How are you happy now, and not before? Because I made some wrong decisions, and I fixed it, and I'm recovering. I'm much happier now, and no longer buckling under the weight of my problems.

Is your solution a quick-fix, or will it last? It should last, until shit happens.

What are your plans? Sigh.

I'm no longer unhappy - that's one good thing. But now I'm just very confused because I completely cannot see the path that lies beyond me. And that just frustrates me. I must always be able to see the path beyond me, to know where I'm going in the future.

I want to know if I'm going to revert to old May Zhee in KL, and then what? Revert to new May Zhee in America when I come back? There are just some things that if I do as old May Zhee, I just can't undo. And I feel like I am capable of practicing restraint if I tell myself to. If I tell myself something is worth restraint for. But will I look back and regret this? Do I want to restrain? Or will it be a case of Wee Lim again, where I look back on the four years I've wasted and go, fuck, should have opted out when I could.

I think there's only one way to find out. And that is to be honest and talk it out. But sometimes being honest doesn't really help, does it? Because some things are just meant for you to know, because sometimes ignorance is bliss, because sometimes two heads really don't make things better.

But I guess I can try. I guess I can find out what is exactly going on with my heart. Set out all the options ahead of me. And then carve a path for every option. Find out if I should restrain, and if it's worth the restraint and - this question I have to deal with myself - if I want the restraint.

Assume the worst option/path:

Do I want to stop sleeping with other guys? Yes. Will he want me to stop sleeping with other guys, and will he make the restraint worth something? No, he doesn't really care. What happens next? I go back to KL, fuck around and come back to America, probably not even going to sleep with him anymore, as he realizes our fucking breeds clinginess, and does not want to perpetuate that.

Hmm. Doesn't sound too bad.

Another path.

Do I want? Yes. Will he want? No. What happens next? The pining and yearning gets worse, and I realize that I - and this is coming from my own conscience - cannot sleep with other men while sleeping with him, and I decide to just sleep with him, exclusively. That could be a) bad for me if he's making me unhappy b) okay if I'm okay c) really super fucking bad if while doing so I fall deeper and deeper for him and then one day he turns up with another girl d) not that super fucking bad if while doing so I don't fall further for him, which I should be capable of.

Oh, women. Why do we do this to ourselves.

Ten lines.

2010-12-12T13:39:00.004-05:00

Did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?
Even heroes have the right to bleed,
For you I'd bleed myself dry.

This is the deep and dying breath, this love that we've been working on,
I just want to be there, when the morning light explodes,
Keep me where the light is.

I'm getting old and I need something to rely on,
Instead of stressed, I lie here charmed,
Lost inside, adorable illusion and I cannot hide,
I pray that something picks me up, and sets me down in your warm arms.

***

What is this, you ask? This is, in fact, my favorite lines from ten of my favorite songs muahahahahah. Did you think it was poetry I wrote myself muahahahaha. Oh I'm so deep.

Goals.

2010-12-09T01:50:00.005-05:00

I like goals. Goals make me happy. Thinking about goals, setting goals, doing snow angels in my mental sea of goals. Achieving goals is obviously the best, but because that necessitates something called Time, which for me right now is going at its utmost leisurely pace, let's just stick to thinking/setting/doing snow angels in goals.

So these are my goals for the next semester. It's not too far away. It'll start on January 12, all the way till May something.

1. Get off campus more often. To the mall, or movies, or lunch/dinner outside every once in a while. Looking back on this semester, I have been out probably an average of twice a month. A MONTH. THAT'S 30/31 DAYS PEOPLE. Of course I'm having chronic depression. I can't be caged in! I'm like a bird I wanna fly away ... oh, a song, how lovely.

Point is. It's not about being away from home. It's about being away from elements that made home pleasant to me.

Exhibit A:

Zouk on Friday nights.

How can you confine a girl who makes it a point to go clubbing every Friday night to a college campus? In fact in the past three months (Jesus Christ three?!?) I have not gone anywhere near the vicinity of a bar/club.

No wonder I'm depressed.

Goal next semester is to spend one night a week in a place full of people I don't know.

2. Hate people less. Or try.

Like if a bunch of girls start talking in front of me in the library next semester, I will try not to picture them all falling off a cliff in the most heinous way possible.

Whereas at home I could do it, because life was great. But now that life isn't great, hating people will only make it worse. Isn't that great. In order to hate humanity I have to be happy again.

3. Read more. Write more. They make me happy.

4. Start 20-paged papers earlier.

5. To just appreciate shit. (Suggested by my awesome debater partner Lindsey.)

6. Visit the medical school, Eastman (our music school, which is better than yours btw) and the athletic center more often. Oh, academic pursuits of course.

7 - 9. To be determined.

10. And, finally, my biggest goal of next semester: letting go of the past.

I can't believe how ironic it is that when I came to America - during my journey here, in fact - I was blogging about how history serves no purpose and people who hold on to the past are pathetic and weak.

I never realized I was doing just that, in every aspect of my life too.

I keep thinking about what a great life I had, what great friends and teachers I had, how Malaysia was much better ... and I had unknowingly let the past live the present day for me. I have never once viewed America and college on their own, always in comparison with Malaysia and my past.

And I should know better.

So my biggest goal for next semester is to let go of the past. I tried to justify my actions before by saying I wasn't holding on to the past; I was just trying to lead the way of life I've once chosen for myself, but I have so desperately tried to jam it into my American world, like a misfit lego piece.

And that just destroyed me. I was unhappy pretty much everday. It occurs to me now that if I want to keep my way of life, I'm gonna have to do the ultimate reverse and stop glorifying what I've done in the past. Instead of getting all mad that I've fallen for a guy, and complaining I'm weak, and complaining that the old me would have done this and this, I should pick myself up and do what I can do within the confines of a college, and America. Sure, I won't have charming Spanish men to ease my soul here, but when have I needed charming Spanish men to do that?

It just recently hit me again how absolutely useless the past is. So what if I've pretty much gotten every man I wanted? I still feel jealous when I see the guy I like talk to girls, though I know for every girl he talks to, I can get ten men for myself. I still get hurt. So what if I've managed to get through 10 guys without developing feelings for them, but I do for the 11th?

And that's when the realization came. It doesn't matter if in the past I've been engaged to Prince William, because right now, in this moment, I was just a 20-year-old college student n America. And I'm going to have to solve my problems like one, not who I was in the past.

And when I knew that (well actually the process of finding out is still happening, right now) ... I was free. I may not be anywhere near the pinnacle of happiness, but at least I've managed to shed my excess baggage on my way there.

So even from today, no more. I am no longer the greatest woman on planet Zouk. I am in America. I'm 20 years old. I study English and History at University of Rochester. I love writing, and I'll always do. That'll never change about me. I don't believe in relationships or love, but sometimes I fall too. And that's okay. I'll learn to deal with it eventually. I like meeting new people, so I'm saying hi to you.

So tell me more about you. What are you studying here?

The day everyone thought I died.

2010-12-06T19:56:00.002-05:00

That night I went back to my room and cried.

I sent an e-mail to my parents, telling them how much I missed them, and how when I go back home this Christmas, I won't want to come back to America anymore.

I thought about Shereen, and Debra, and Brooke, and I cried some more.

Then I just sort of fell asleep for a long, long time.

I was awoken in the morning by security knocking on my door. I opened it.

"..."

"..."

(I can't remember the conversation. It was groggy.)

"Are you alright? Your roommate called, she was worried."

"Yeah I'm fine. I was sleeping so I had my phone on silent, she was calling the whole night."

"The whole night?"

"..."

"..."

"I guess she was just being a good friend. So everything's alright?"

"Yeah, everything's fine."

I wasn't about to tell the security guard that I was having a self-crisis, and sleeping was my only way out at the moment, because it's not like I can do anything in this stupid country of his.

And so he left. And back to sleep, I went.

I woke up in the afternoon to take a head-to-toe shower, and resumed my sleep.

When I finally woke up for good, it had been 24 hours.

I woke up in search for food. I ordered in, because I didn't have my ID card, because I needed it to pay for food on campus, because my ID card was in a place I didn't want to go.

I also did not have my laptop, because it was also in the place I didn't want to go.

I did my laundry with quarters, because I didn't have my ID card, which would pay for my laundry.

At 2.30am, I went there. I figured there'd be no one there. There wasn't. I got my laptop and ID card.

I went back to my room, and went to bed.

The next morning, I got a call from my Dad, asking me why I had sounded so "desperate" in my e-mail. Then he told me to stop being couped up in my room everyday. He also told me to go to the gym.

When my roommate got back (she went home on weekends), we talked.

"Okay, so, what happened?!"

I told her what happened, with security and all. I told her what happened the night before, how I got so upset and ran back into the room.

"But ... why? What triggered it?"

"I don't know. I thought about how I was going to go back to an empty room that night and be all alone and I realized how much I hated being alone."

"I kept texting you and you didn't reply me, and then I woke up at 10 in the morning and you still didn't reply me. And I thought it was really weird because you always responded. I was so worried, my mom told me to call security. I couldn't even speak I was choking. My mom had to talk for me.

So you see ... you're not alone. I was worried for you. Someone was there for you."

When I cried, it didn't feel like I was crying because I was in America, and far from home. I was crying because I realized how much I hated who I am right now, when before I had loved it. I hated how I don't need people - and dislike people. I hated how I'm such a self-important bitch. I hated how I can't do relationships. I hated how personal success is the only measure of happiness to me. I hated how I don't think humans provide any value to me.

I'm no longer who I was before. The person I was before would not be crying into her pillow on a Saturday night.

On Saturday night, that became more glaring than ever. I turned down someone I knew I would have casually fucked (and have) had I been even half of the person I was before, and I found myself pining for the most abhorrent thing ever: company. Not sex. Just company. People have ceased to become objects that I use for my own ends, and discard after. People have become permanent fixtures in my life, that I need and pine for.

And when I realize I couldn't even get that on a Saturday night, I broke down.

I don't know how many breakdowns I'd have to go through before I start to heal properly again. I don't know. I just know that this time, I'm not making the same mistake I've made in my past when healing. I thought I was strong enough to face the one thing that was triggered my breakdowns, I thought I could face it and emerge stronger ... and I just end up falling apart. And again. And again. And again.

I never realized how much weaker I was now, and how I just can't do things I used to do when I was strong.

So I'm gonna go to a dress rehearsal for a staged reading now, in which a play I wrote is being performed. I love theater people. I always happy around them. In fact they're the only ones I can feel happy around in my moment of weakness.

And so off to the theater world, I shall go. Bye-bye!

2010-12-03T02:14:00.001-05:00

Ten Things I Like About College:
1. People here are more mature, and less judgmental than high school kids. Also meeting smart, enthusiastic people with goals in life.
2. Being away from home.
3. Free condoms.
4. Skipping class is not punishable by death.
5. Being independent.
6. Many arts, cultural, etc events going on.
7. Americans.
8. Opportunity to stretch my limits.
9. More about America but woohoo free healthcare!!!
10. Professors who like Russia.

Ten Things I Don't Like About College:
1. Sharing the bathrooms. Or just sharing anything in general, really.
2. Being away from home.
3. Awful parties.
4. Americans.
5. Overstretching my limits.
6. Boys who try to hump you from the back on the dance floor.
7. Bad sex.
8. NOT BEING ABLE TO TAKE DUMPS BECAUSE YOU JUST CAN'T.
9. More about America, but the fucking weather here.
10. Never leaving it to go explore other exciting things in the city.

Now I'm about to go do things 1 and 8 on my Don't Like list, and after that I'm going to "stretch my limits" like no. 8 on my Like list, also known as "editing this play I wrote for next week's staged reading at 2.30 in the morning".

Woo.

Half a wing broken and all that.

2010-11-29T00:11:00.003-05:00

Hi, it's me again. And I'm writing this on the train, as I'm on my way to Penn Station, New York. [Editor's note: Yeah, I'm publishing this a lot later.]

Okay so I guess I conked out a little in my previous post.

At this point you must be flailing your arms going, "A little?! A little?!?"

Okay a lot. I conked out a lot. I was all over the place, and everything just kinda merged into one towards the end of the post. My anger displaced, the enemy obscured and my sanity somewhat in pieces.

Writing this from a (relatively) happier perspective, I can see things (relatively) clearer now. I guess things were going way too well for me in this new home of mine. I mean, I'm adjusting well, I'm not missing the food too much and at any rate I haven't completely broken down yet, crying for my mom.

And so I proudly boast to everyone that I don't feel the least bit homesick, and that I'm doing perfectly fine here, and hey look at me I'm better than everyone else.

But now I've realized this: if I've never left home in my life - let alone 36 hours away - how would I know how homesickness feels like? How would I have known even if it hits me in the face? Would I have recognized it for homesickness, or just shrug it off as another form of depression in my day-to-day life?

And I think this is homesickness coming to me in the strangest form ever. It's not bad enough to completely debilitate me - the most it'll do is disrupt my daily functions, annoying at most - and so shrug it off, I did.

When the going is good, I don't notice it lurking in the corner, bubbling under the surface, manifesting in the cracks. It's when there's a slight tweak in my grand master plan, that's when it makes its presence felt, like a wound that has been left to fester in the open. It only gets worse.

And then I start having thoughts like:

"WHEN I GO HOME THIS CHRISTMAS, I SHAN'T RETURN."

"THIS IS A SHITHOLE A HELLHOLE GET ME OUT OF HEREEEE."

"FUCK THIS COUNTRY FUCK YOU ALL."

Except not even that eloquently phrased in my head. On Facebook statuses and Twitter updates, sure. But in my head it's all just a jumble of confusion, anger and vulgarity.

I used to think that homesickness just meant pining for your family and friends, spasming at the thought of Asian food and breaking down completely, crying for your mom.

But now I realize that homesickness can also come in the form of frustration at American politics and its people, realizing how much of a role family has played in soothing your frazzled nerves, something you were never away long enough to see the effects of, and just being angry and depressed at everything
(like a Cheerios cereal box, or walmart), despite life going really well for you (and despite the fact that you really like Cheerios and Walmart).

I am at the weakest point in my life so far (more to come, no worries); I feel like I'm a shadow of the person I used to be.

To be honest, at this point, I have no grand master plan to fix this. I really don't. I guess grand master plans can only be made in times of joy.

I really do feel that despite being strong and happy on the outside, I'm slowly dying on the inside. Even as I type this. Even as I'm starting the process of healing, even if I'll soon get what I want, even when I know I can fix this.

Some things, when unleashed, just refuse to back down.

[EN: Now back to the present.]

Don't worry, I'm almost done. The whining will stop soon. I'm glad I saved the last part for now, so I can write in retrospect and sound less whiny.

When I was writing the above, I remember thinking, "Shit. I'm going down." And it was true. I did feel like I was going down, and even now when things are all fine and dandy, I still remember how it felt.

I also remember feeling, for the first time, like I needed someone. I would have taken anyone. In this little movie I'm playing in my head I keep seeing a little wounded sparrow by the road - you know, half a wing broken and all that.

Considering before the movie was usually a montage of my awesome one nights to some awesome soundtrack, and now it is the sob story of a woodland creature, I say it's quite a big change.

Sigh. Do I need someone now that I feel better? I don't know. Would I merely be using that person to pick myself up again? Definitely. Wouldn't that be wrong? Possibly.

Anyway, I gotta go. I've got a life to lead.

2010-11-24T21:59:00.004-05:00

What you're reading right now is really a whole blog post, deleted.

I can't write. Not right now. I really can't. I hope you don't start construing this as me "writing" because I'm just not capable of it anymore. Not right now. I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you how I feel and why I'm feeling what I'm feeling.

I feel like shit. In the deleted blog post, I used the phrase "a hermit that has mishandled its shell and broken it somehow". That still holds true. But I'm going to have to explain it now, and not leave it hanging, since I am no longer "writing".

When I came to Rochester, I had an idea of what I was going to be here. Half of that was fulfilled, the other half not.

The fulfilled part was, I developed goals, I am working towards them, I am keeping myself busy, I am maximizing my time and I am being successful. I am on top of my game, as I was back home. I've successfully projected that part of me onto my life in America.

The unfulfilled part is, I no longer party. I no longer drink. I no longer sleep around.

In fact, quite the opposite, I have fallen for someone, and paying the price for it too.

While I have also managed to find people I expected to find - smart people with goals in life - as well as the stimulating environment I had expected an American college to be like, I am also extremely infuriated by the ignorance of the smart, average Americans, who think Obama and Bush are the same thing.

So not only have I failed to project social and sexual niches onto my American life, I am also being pushed back on the frontline here. I feel like the old me is being erased, bit by bit, and it's eating into my successes, effectively reversing all the happiness I thought I had felt here, hence I feel like shit now.

My main source of frustration is that I can't remember who I was before I came here. I could feel myself dying inside, slowly, as my days in Rochester went on and now I have to face it all at once.

I am looking at things and feelings that old me would have done and experienced, but they're not coming to me anymore.

How could I have changed that much, and will there be a way to restore myself? Or have I been damaged way beyond repair? Why are beliefs made in the past so fleeting and obsolete?

Like a true man, America stood me up. Today, right now, in this moment, 9.27pm ... he stood me up. He made promises he couldn't keep, and it really hurts. Because I had fallen for him. A good couple of years ago, I had fallen for a country by the name of America, and I had formed all these expectations about him, listed all the good things about him, planned out things I was going to do with him, convinced myself that everyone was wrong, and that I would soon be going to a better place. But he never could live up to it. For three months I've been pining and hoping. I felt like he didn't even try.

I should have known from the start that he couldn't reciprocate my feelings, that he just didn't have the mechanism in place to reciprocate, and I felt like somehow he had tried to tell me, but that wouldn't have stopped me.

I was hooked, and I was only going to fall deeper.

(A woman's life ends the day she falls for someone. She knows from that day on, she'll have to start the process of picking herself up, and women are just not very good at that.)

All the ideals about him that I formed in my head, all the things I thought he would be, all the things he would give me...

He tried to tell me, but I was hooked.

I was getting weaker by the day, having my insides eaten, erased, destroyed ... the more I believed in him, the more hope I put on his broad shoulders that I had found so attractive, I didn't notice him turning away from me. I was dying inside, as one by one of our make-believe promises started falling apart, and only one of us felt hurt by it.

Like a true man, he stood me up. Like a true woman, I died inside.

If you want the truth, here's the truth. It'll make my blog feel like a large, depressing clump of shit, but I don't care right now. These are the list of words to describe how I'm feeling right now:

Empty, blank, down, depressed, scared, vulnerable, numb, empty, empty, upset, numb, confused, hurt, angry, blank, blank, hollow empty blank blank ...

And so on.

Today I stand as a feeble woman, without a past and no sight of a future, except for the fact that I have lived, and will live.

He had ruined me. But it was only because I had attached myself so closely to him that he had something to destroy.

In seven hours, I am going away. I am leaving my birthplace, to try and cut away the umbilical cord that has led to my abuse, and I want to fix myself. I want to live again, breathe on my accord, not for him or his ideals. I want to live in my own right, not with my fantasies of being with him hanging over my head.

It's time I stop falling for his broad shoulders, and take apart my dreams for the little frauds that they are.

In seven hours, I am going away.

"Right, I meant South Korea. You guys know North Korea, South Korea, all those Chinese look the same to me!" - Sarah justwhenyouthinkshecantgetdumber Palin.

2010-11-24T16:54:00.001-05:00

Get me out of here.

GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
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GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE
GET ME OUT OF HERE

GET ME OUT OF HERE

No pain, no gain.

2010-11-18T12:12:00.004-05:00

I'm trying to create emotional duress for myself because I am getting my arm pricked with a needle in three hours and if I do this good enough I will be SO distracted by the time the doctor takes my blood sample that I will feel no physical pain.

Muahahahahhahaha.

So. Let's recount all the things that are genuinely fucked up about your life, May Zhee. Let's see where do I even start...

You hate humanity. And you hate humanity even more in the morning when you have to share the bathroom with ten other college girls. In the morning you feel like stabbing everyone in your way, even if they're not in your way. All they have to do is to exist in the bathroom, in the morning, and you'll hate them.

You're a solitary person. You like doing things alone, and you're getting increasingly so as the days go on, and you favor success over everything else.

You hate being with people. You hate people. Unless you feel they're good enough for you. To you, everyone's an idiot. Humanity's an idiot. Human beings are stupid in general. That's their baseline quality. The way they fall prey to - GRIMACE- emotions, how vulnerable they are ... pathetic.

If you want to fall prey to something, fall prey to success. At least you would know you've achieved something. Or die trying...

Humans are inherently stupid, and you hate them all. Especially college girls. In the bathroom. At 9 in the morning. Fuck humans.

Now let's get into the nitty-gritty stuff.

You're pretty much a slut. By society's terms, and yours. You sleep with pretty much anything you find attractive. Your only standard is they have to be hot. And you do that because it's a defense mechanism. Because when people judge you, you judge them back. Because you know if given the chance they would do the same. And if they don't they're either ugly, or liars. And it gives you something to fall back on. They say I'm a slut well who cares I fucked someone hotter than they did. Well fuck you I fucked someone hotter than you did. Talk to me when you wake up in a house with four fucking gorgeous male models.

I care and don't care about judgments in that way. So in a way I still care.

Your only access to emotions, to affection, to be loved and cared for ... is sex. In that one night. That short session. That's what a relationship is to you. The thrusting and pressing and moaning and groaning. One night. That's all.

That's love to you.

And do you remember the taxi rides? Do you remember the taxi rides in the morning? When you feel that guilt taking over you, the feeling of depression sinking in, you feel shitty and helpless and awful ... that is your life in a nutshell, May Zhee. Your sad, pathetic life.

You like fucking and leaving because you feel like you're in control when you do it. You feel like you can easily access to that joyous channel of love - so to speak - and then ditch it the next day. You like knowing you're in control. You like doing what others can't do. One night. That's all.

Equally, when you fuck ... and you can't leave, you freak out. Because you feel like you're losing control of your emotions, and that you're weak. And that's just not acceptable.

Now, on to men. Yes, let's talk about your choice of men.

You like assholes. Plain and simple for you right there. You like assholes. Men who don't give a shit about you, men who will treat you like shit and men who can and will hurt you emotionally in the most brutal way possible.

Why?

Because first of all, well, that's attractive. It's manly. You can tell how good of a fuck someone is by how much they don't give a shit about girls. You just can. Tested and proven, girls. Tested and proven.

More importantly, it's because you're self-destructive. You choose assholes, because you know that in the eventuality that you do fall for them, the link will self-destruct. You know there will be no possibility of anything beyond what you have now (sex every fucking night) because he simply won't allow it. So if your stupid womanly brain messes you up, you still have the asshole to count on. He won't move beyond what you have.

Tested. and. proven.

Three times in two years.

So that's why.

It's as fucked up as saying I stay with an abusive husband because I like to be beaten.

In the eventuality that I fuck up and don't fall for an asshole (some men can be quite deceiving...), I can always fall back on myself. I know I'll fuck things up somehow along the way. Actually even before I start moving along the way.

There's a formula to it - it's quite beautiful. First I go, hey I like you and I can't sleep with you anymore. Next, I sleep with him some more. Next, oh wait no I can't sleep with you anymore. Again. And ... I sleep with him some more. Somewhere along the way he'll sleep with a friend of mine, or fly off on a plane, or fuck up himself. Still not working? Repeat steps one to four.

Ah fuck. I feel so much better after letting all this out. Fail.

Urgh.

I know. I'll listen to some Taylor Swift. She always seems to be able to get some silly girls somewhere really sad about her life when she doesn't have to be.

In the middle of the night,
When I'm in this dream,
It's like a million little stars spelling out your name,
You gotta come on, come on
Say that we'll be together.

This is the stuff TEARS are made of.

Like .. stars in the sky ... untouchable ... something ... diamond sky ...

I hate this.

Just think: the taxi rides in the morning, the fact that you're vulnerable too, don't you hate being vulnerable, yes you do, oh my God work goddamnit WORK ... (*@#$*&(@#$*

The fact that you know if he left, you'd die inside.

Okay I'm ready. Let's do this.

How does Taylor Swift sound angry?

2010-11-16T02:54:00.000-05:00

Like this.

UNTOUCHABLE LIKE A DISTANT DIAMOND SKY.

I'M REACHING OUT AND I JUST CAN'T TELL YOU WHY.

I'M CAUGHT UP IN YOU.

UNTOUCHABLE BURNING BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN.

NOW THAT YOU'RE CLOSE I FEEL LIKE COMING

UNDONE.

Just might pass as metal rock. Just might.

Things to do.

2010-11-14T02:07:00.000-05:00

You know how people always make list of things to do, just because they LIKE making list of things to do, or because it just feels good to make lists? Well ... this is not one of those times. This is a genuine MUST-DO list, which I will try to the best of my abilities to execute, hopefully sometime in the near future.

1. A New York State ID ... or an ID of some sort that is not my passport and would potentially go missing resulting in my eternal despair. Because I need to go clubbing, yo. Or if you can find me some other way to be identified in a club in America ... that would be helpful too.

2. A fucking Canadian visa which involves me going to fucking Buffalo, which could potentially result in my eternal despair. Fucking travel visas grumble grumble. Also for me to go clubbing, yo. And in a country where age 20 is legit for drinking instead of this America bullshit.

3. Sex and the City dosage. I need it. I just do. As ridiculous as drawing strength from fiction sounds ... well fuck you. If you can draw strength from love or whatever, I can from Samantha Jones, okay? Because guess what? They're both NOT REAL. Fuckers.

(I don't know how or why I got so angry here.)

(I am also totally drunk by the way and this has necessitated me writing over some words many many times. I don't even know if I'm coherent. But hey I try.)

4. Put Barney Stinson in that list. I need to feel awesome again. Hank Moody also makes me feel awesome, but sometimes he also makes me feel meh, because of his need for a woman, despite how he fucks many women, but he's weak for one woman, I mean ... who does that.

5. Tickets back to KL this December ... oh wait motherfuckers, I got that. THIS BITCH IS GOING HOME.

(I am also apparently very vulgar when drunk. Sigh.)

6. Good sense. Good sense good sense good sense good sense good sense good sense. (It was "God sense" the first time.)

7. Meaningful things to do, like I gotta start writing again, or reading again, because there is no greater love I feel inside than my love for literature. If men won't do it, Milan Kundera will. And there are so few men here ... so few ...

Oh Russian navy boys ... architects ... beautiful creatures of the night ... Hungarian homemade alcohol in the fridge of your hotel room ... "regional area managers" ... the occasional schoolboy ... am I even remembering this right ... always across the lobby the walk was practiced and perfected, always across the lobby ... shiny lifts, my reflection and yours, am I remembering this right ... double French grabs we made... just memories you all are. Just memories. If only memories provided strength, then I'd be a happy girl now. But truth be told, I can barely remember any of you. Learn to be substantial, before purporting to give me strength. I can barely remember any of you.

Really?

All I can remember now is the hollowness I felt when I walked past your apartment, again and again, night after night, sitting by the taxi stand ... knowing things will never be right with me ... men of the fucking Iberian peninsular fucking fuck fuck...

I need my city. I want my city.

For you I bleed myself dry...

KL is talking to me again.

2010-11-11T14:28:00.001-05:00

And this time, I responded. Oh yes I did.

I'm ready to go back for Christmas break. By ready I mean I actually want to now. I'm a firm believer that home is where the heart is, and right now my heart is here in America, yes, but a part it is still in KL, still beating for KL, still bleeding for KL.

I've done a lot of exciting things here. I both love it and hate it here, as I do with Malaysia, but I am so. ready. to. go. home.

Home, where football actually garners respect from people, where people use the right words (kilometers, Celsius, zebra crossing you fucktards ZEBRA CROSSING), where I lived and breathed as a nomad during the nights, where men - MEN - know the game and play the game, where politics is fucked up in our own special way, where accents actually exist ...

Oh, accents. What I would do to walk down Changkat to hear the diversity of accents again.

It's getting really hard to be a single-loving, free-thinking bitch in America because all the things I love and cherish about being single are taken away from me. For example, choices. The whole point about being single is your freedom and diversity in fucking choices. Yes shove that pun up your ass.

Today for the first time I looked around the room I was in and realize I was in a shithole.

A shithole.

Debra you're right, this is a shithole.

And I want to go home.

2010-11-10T10:24:00.000-05:00

No May Zhee you must let go now just think about it let go let go he's not worth it fact he doesn't give a shit about you if you're so bothered by it now think about what he could do to you if you let it drag on just let go now if you're feeling like shit now because you don't talk to him or see him think about how you would feel in the long run when you just fall deeper and deeper let go now he's not worth it fact he doesn't give a shit about you no no why should I why because I feel miserable without him I can't do shit I'm so demotivated I Just want to sleep in my bed all day long why I can't help it but no May Zhee let go now you could do so much better you just can't see it now because no one can see it now trust me you'll thank yourself in the long run look back on this day and thank yourself you did it you can do it you did it with Alex Ed now you can do it think about the past he's not worth it you can do it you can rise above it just pull through you've been doing well just pull through don't talk to him don't go into the office don't talk to him don't talk to him you need to stay away can't like someone who doesn't like you back only going to get hurt you'll meet new guys this weekend just stay away stay away till then immerse yourself in work but I can't I can't I feel like shit every day every second I feel incomplete but no no you can do it just do it this is the hardest part once you pull through you'll be fine you can't see it now but once you see it you'll see it you can get to the end of this tunnel the light will come soon you'll be able to let go and forget him soon just do it May Zhee he's not fucking worth it do it do it pull through let go just let go.

Cranky-ass bitch is blogging.

2010-10-31T21:55:00.004-04:00

If you have never participated in a "Policy Debate", or even have a clue what it is (no, it's not what you think, shut up) ... this post doesn't apply to you. Don't read it. Save your time. Save your brain power. Just go away.

(Err okay so it didn't turn out to be much about debate, so it's safe for you to read. This is what happens when you ramble too much... which still really doesn't give you much reason to read this.)

I'm in a horribly cranky mood today, and it's partially due to debate. Not really debate debate, or even the idea of debate, just ... how fucking committed I am to it, and how much it matters to me.

I've been going frequently to debate tournaments since the start of this year. I've been to three now, and my fourth will be coming this weekend. At my last tournament, which was in West Point - sorry, I mean...

... West Point, I realized just how passionate I could feel towards something that started out as an intellectually challenging activity. And at the same time just how much distant I was to the living things around me.

I have spent more time at the tournaments (usually three days per tournament), more time in the debate office and more time with my debaters-cum-friends outside of those things, more than I have with the people in my freshmen hall.

Also because I'm just so meh about it all ... this whole sharing bathroom thing (fucking hate HATE having my private bathroom time being invaded, even by passive beings. FUCKING HATE), I'm so over the idea of traveling around in cliques, I'm just so done with it all. I know it sounds horrible, but I'm not a college freshman. Not really. I don't feel like it. To them, college must be about classes and parties and friends or something.

To me, college is where I really push my limits, both academically and in my interests (hence why I'm putting equal amount of time, sometimes more in my extracurricular activities than my studies); to write, and write, and write; to stop and think about where I am in life and where I want to be tomorrow, or next semester, or in four years; to meet new people and establish connections - and not just of the social kind.

And then coming back to my dorm at the end of the night ... just to sleep.

To me, my dorm is exactly just that. A place for me to sleep, and where all my things are at. I don't even need a roommate - though I LOVE my current roommate to death. College is basically a continuation of what I've been doing my whole life - working and learning and writing and finding myself (oh and fucking, but you already know that) and then coming home at the end of the day - except now I'm doing it on my own now. Without my family by my side.

I don't see it in terms of going to Physics 101, eating lunch with my friends, then Chem 101, then more hanging out with my friends in the dorm, then homework, then sleep. I don't. I see it as: get up in the morning, go out and learn shit that will definitely be useful to me (learning about wars > learning about molecules), grab food, do a little writing/editing/debate stuff/theater stuff (all of which are useful to me as a writer/thinker), then some homework (this is the only time I feel like a college student), then sleep.

This is why I don't feel like I'm in America. I don't feel like I've moved thousands of miles away, or have flown 36 hours to get here. Sometimes when walking on the street I look up and try to slap it into myself that I'm in America, bitch, but it doesn't work. I feel exactly the same as I have back in Malaysia. (On some levels, just minus the whole go-crazy-party-on-Friday-nights thing.) Despite looking up and seeing buildings that I would never in my life see in Malaysia, despite the cold, despite the trees with leaves so orange ... I stil feel like I've never left the world I've built for myself.

Before coming to America, I remember freaking out about where the "center of my soul" is, and if it lied (laid?!) in something physical like my bedroom (in Malaysia) or in this laptop since this is where I have all the stuff that matters to me, or whether it's (cliche) in me.

And then I got into the whole question of whether you place the center of your soul in something, or if you FIND it, and then fuck me in the ass because things just got real complicated from then on because I have a vagina and that's what vaginas do. They complicate things.

But today I realize that the center of my soul just might be with me. It's portable, and I carry it to wherever I build my next home.

My dreams and aspirations, and the way I've decided to work towards them, and my attitude towards life and other people (hate you all ... I'm just joking. No, I'm not) ... they've never changed. I'm still who I am, wherever I go. Give me the opportunities, give me the tools, and I will build my same self out of nothing for you.

And that's the case with debate. Now that I'm done with the rambling, here comes the surge of vulgarities.

Hey, fuck you.

Yeah, you.

If you think that debate is just a JOKE.

What do you think it is? A class that you can just get an A on? Fuck me sideways. It is not.

If you don't realize the beauty and the gravity of debate, you are not prepared. If you watch a round of policy debate and you don't feel scared shitless (or at least "inadequate and depressed" as a friend puts it) then you are not prepared. If you don't know what a counterplan is, and you have no interest in finding out, you are NOT PREPARED.

Policy debate is not something you can just waltz into and be good at. Not even close. You think just because you can debate, you can be good at it? Kid, this is not debate. This is not debate at all. This is not a debate about ... abortion issues, or your grandmother's apron. At least, it won't be a debate that's JUST about it. I wish I was a higher-level debater so I can tell you what debate is really about, but I concede to you that I can't.

But I know a few things for sure: that even the most basic aspects of policy debate is beautiful. That even what the novices know, and are being taught about, and are training to do ... is an art itself.

To be able to talk at lighting speed and with clarity, and to be understood and deemed pleasant by the people who are trained to understand and enjoy this type of speaking; to be trained to be one of those people - by tuning your ears to that extraordinary level of speed and clarity; to keep up with the other team when they speak at such speed and with less clarity; to think on your feet not by spinning bullshit out of nothing, but within the context of what you have, to act fast with information and to be able to handle that kind of stress, to learn about arguments AS you make them ...

... yeah debate is tough shit. It's not something you can learn overnight. It's not something you can learn within your own group - it's something you learn through debating with other people (yes, meaning you actually have to go out into the world. Scared?) and listening to different judges' tear apart your debating ways.

It. is. tough. shit. You don't get by without spending at least more than half of whatever time you've intended to spend on it. Unless you intend to spend 1000000 hours on it. Then that sounds about right.

If you wanna be good in debate, then expect to sacrifice time. Expect to say goodbye to birthdays, and friends, and half (okay maybe a quarter) of your social life.

If you're not some dedicated crazy motherfucking Asian who also does a whole bunch of stuff on campus, then you won't miss literally all the important events in your social life consecutively. But it will happen. The timing will go wrong, you'll have a big test tomorrow, or a big party to attend, or your best friend's pet dog just died and she wants you by her side ... and then what do you do?

Well, you debate. That's what you do.

No mercy. No pity. Just debate.

So back to the point I was making before I completely went off tangent, and then went off tangent of being off tangent ... and now I'm back.

So at my previous tournament at West Point, I literally lost 90% of my rounds. During my last round, I had a shit judge (it happens, part and parcel of this game. I accept it, I don't complain ... much) and I broke down. I saw another girl crying, and it was incentive enough.

Which was of course stupid because I barely remember the last time I cried for a guy, or a family member (err didn't meant to put "guy" first), or a friend. The last time I cried was probably when I found out I was failing a subject, or something like that.

Evidently, I have no strong connection whatsoever with humans, and more for the things I feel strongly about. Hah.

And everytime someone asks me, why English? Why Russia? Why History? Why communism? Why this strange fascination with pedophilia in literature? Why debate?

And all I can tell them is, I just fell in love with it, it just happened. I don't know why.

PS - Also, policy debate is literally teaching me something new everytime I read another line of my evidence. (And we have tubs of them. I repeat, tubs.) I now know American politics better than ever, and I'm only going to know a lot more as time goes by, which is always awesome. I now know what plenary powers are, and before I barely knew what mid-term elections were. Policy debate doesn't just teach you how to debate, or how to argue - that's other forms of debate. When you have to speak nine minutes of constructive, and six minutes of rebuttals, also not to mention you are completely involved in the entire round of the debate - either helping your partner prep or listening to the opponents' answers - you learn to debate issues in a very specific way that only policy debates can offer. It's not the simple fact of standing up and opposing the other team's argument, debating policy requires you to strategicize, to frame your arguments according to the situation and to constantly think on your feet. It's a beautiful thing.

PPS - It has also trained me to read dense, intricate, philosophical, political, argumentative documents in a shorter amount of time. I am practically breezing through chapters of my Russian Foreign Policy book. Your brain just immediately highlights the important parts. You also learn to take notes much faster, due to this thing you do in policy debate called flowing. Oh, flowing. If only you knew. Okay I'm done.

PPPS - Apparently I'm not.

Presenting, my debate coaches :) And Karimu in the middle, who's an awesome debater.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Message

2010-10-27T03:14:00.000-04:00

Okay so you know that song? Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars?

I know like it's making girls all over the world all warm and fuzzy inside, and you just can't help smiling to yourself whenever the song comes on, and you always imagine your boyfriend/prospective boyfriend singing it to you and you feeling like the luckiest girl in the world, like that moment is oh so perfect - I mean even I can't help it, look at the lyrics: "her laugh, her laugh, she hates but I think it's so sexy" like wow fuck me Bruno Mars marry me now though I have never been and am still not attracted to you ... but you get it.

But honestly, girls ... I'm just here to bring you a friendly neighborhood reminder: a guy who is as sweet as that is going to be either clingy ... or a womanizer.

So yeah. Dreams crushed. You're welcome.

Fuck I'm so confused?!?!?!?

2010-10-27T02:55:00.004-04:00

Oh man these past few days have just been like ... a whole jumble of emotions with clashing shapes, sizes and forms.

This is literally how my mind gets from one point to another:

I hate men -> okay I like men again -> fuck sex is so good -> ARGH I HATE MEN AGAIN -> fuck fuck fuckf cuk fuck why do I do this to myself -> I miss home :( I wanna go home :( I rather be emotionally fucked up at home than here, that's where I've always been emotionally fucked up ... what is this strange, strange place?! -> Men suck I hate life -> GAH I WANNA GO CLUBBING I WANNA DANCE WHERE IS MY ZOUK?! -> Maybe if I went to New York City -> I hate men so much -> okay I'm going to distant myself from him -> fuck life -> ARHGAJSAKFJA;F -> I miss Swedish people I miss singing Abba with them at parties man I miss international communities I miss accents fuck this homogeneous place ->

And now I'm kinda here.

Well it's not surprising coming from the fact that it's watching Hitler and Stalin videos that makes me homesick, because my old History class played that much of a role in my memories. So not your usual evocation of home.

And also "home" for me has never been an exactly static concept, since my closest friends are now all over the world, some even here in America. So when I say I miss home, I'm actually saying I miss ... singing Abba at Swedish parties. Or the Spanish community in KL I've been watching the World Cup with. Or the random people I meet every night out. Changkat was my home. KL was my home. Zouk was my home. And those places aren't exactly the forefront of Malaysian culture. They were just places to have a good time.

And my heart never really left KL. But at the same time, I feel like I'm a world away. See where my post title came from.

So for a long time here I was, in my dorm room in Rochester, believing I was truly homesick, that I truly wanted to go back and lead my KL lifestyle again, that America sucks, that it'll never compare, that I really want to go home, that I miss Zouk, I miss Changkat, until one day, something happened.

KL spoke to me.

Through Facebook chat.

I spoke back - very, very seductively too I must say ... but I just didn't feel it.

He told me to come back, and that he wants me to come back.

But I felt nothing. For all the days I've spent here in my dorm room in Rochester, thinking about having KL here with me, so I can live the good old days again ... I felt nothing.

KL was talking to me, and I didn't feel like talking back.

And that just really exacerbated my self-identity crisis, which was messed up already as you can see from the flowchart above.

If I'm not that girl whose heart belongs to the line "Hey sexy girl from Kuala-la-la Lumpur!", then who the fuck am I?

And yes if you read between the lines you sort of know a guy is involved in this somehow. And that just really fucks things up. Like, real bad.

I dare anyone to try and fucking psychoanalyze me. That thing is bullshit. I am such a complex creature emotionally that I think Freud and Jung would rather eat their brains out than try to figure me out. I don't see how anyone can do it, because I'm barely able to do that myself.

I would like to see you try.

Argh.

I'm a self-destructive mess. It's written all over my face. It's written all over this blog post. This is the end of it all. Once this is published, I'm screwed... I will have no mode of interaction left with humans, except through sex.

It's 2.47am and I'm tired.

But whatever. Doesn't change the fact that I'm screwed. Screwed.

Okay.

Okay.

Okayokayokayokayokay.

Okay. I'm letting go of you, buddy. Not that there was anything to hold on to in the first place.

PS - Oh bah. Here comes the getting over process again. It's going to be painful.

PPS - Work is an awesome remedy. From now on, until the end of time, I will work. Work myself to death. Work. WORK WORK WORK WORK. It distracts you to just keep working, and working, and working. When you see me, literally, all the time, I'll be working. Or thinking about work. Yes good plan.

Geometrical shapes vs erratic drawings.

2010-10-21T01:01:00.007-04:00

It's not true. Whatever a woman says. Even me. Every word that tumbles out of our mouths might as well be self-inflicted lies. Complete lies.

Regardless of what we say, we're all victims to who we are inherently: whiny bitches.

Woman tells you she's okay with you talking to her attractive friend? Lies.

Woman tells you she's okay with you spending the entire weekend with your buddies? Lies.

Woman tells you she doesn't care? LIES.

No matter who we are, or what we say, or what we do, we are all ruled by our emotions. We can be the toughest SOB on the planet and we'd still cave when emotions come through.

Sad but true. Sad but true...

Men and women think VERY differently. I don't know how much more I can emphasize that. I don't have to have scientific reasons, or even to have lived as a man to know, I just know.

Men and women think in completely different circles. For men, the circle is called ... a straight line. For women, the circle is called ... fuck-where-did-the-circle-go-I've-been-too-busy-walking-in-circles.

It's fucking stupid. Both of them, but probably the women one more. Maybe because I really want to think like a man, and less like a woman. But really, these two different mind paths never fail to amaze me. No matter how the feminists try to argue that men and women are equal in mindpower ... it's still there. This difference.

How a woman can interpret one text message in many different ways, viewpoints, theories, personalities, lifestyles, languages ... the list goes on. And men, oh the men, interpret it in one way: exactly the way it is written.

I know using texting and talking might seem like a very small thing to present a big concept, but it's in this most basic human interaction that the true woman falls through the cracks. How women instantly start to overthink things, while men take their time underthinking. How women are so erratic, and the man so stoic. How women need to talk about their problems, and men don't.

Anyway, back to me. Wait, were we talking about me before? No? Well we should. So back to me.

I can think 80% of the time like a man, and 20% of the time like a woman. But because that 20% is so empowering, it feels like a 100% when I'm in that 20%. Does this make sense? Because it shouldn't. I'm a woman. Nothing I say makes sense. Anyway.

I know that because when I'm being a woman, I totally forget about the times when I'm a man. Because I guess that's what it means to be a man. To be completely oblivious about the fact that you're being a man.

Everytime I bitch-whine to my friend about how I'm falling for this guy, and how it's really torturing me inside waiting for his replies, how it's really really torturing me inside to see him so nonchalant towards my feelings, and how it's fucking torturing me inside to see him with another girl ... my friends just remind me that I've done the same to about twenty guys so who am I to be complaining when it's done to me?

And then I promptly agree, and shut up.

Because it is true I do this to all the other guys. I can like them, and at the same time, not like them. I can be very enamored by them, and still keep my cool. That's because I probably don't like them very much in the first place. Which is also the characteristic of the common man. He does not fall easily. Women fall just as easily as a slut spreads her legs for the next man. Parallel intended.

So that's the first difference. Women fall easily. Men don't. If you're a common average guy - and oh believe me I know the common average guy, all twenty of them - then you don't. Let me put it this way: a woman is more emotionally flexible. We can adjust our preferences to include any guy within our scope of "yes". Guys ... I don't know how guys fall eventually. I'm thinking like a cosmic rock falls on their head one day and they wake up deciding they like that girl.

I don't know. Don't ask me. Because everytime I fall for someone I'm being a woman.

Second difference.

Fuck this shit. Why am I doing this? I have homework, and a Russian test tomorrow.

Point is, women have emotions. Men don't. Don't believe women. All they tell you are lies. Because they have emotions, and everything they say will try to contradict that, and you'll know it's a lie. The end bye.

Kingdom come.

2010-10-15T03:30:00.003-04:00

I realize I might have fallen into a dreadful spiral. One that I knew I should avoid, but have fallen into nonetheless.

That spiral is called "campus life".

See, when you go to college in America, your campus will be like your ... kingdom. Your dorm will be your castle. You'll have all the amenities and services you'll need on a daily basis.

Don't want to grow fat and want to attract boys? There's a gym for you.

Want to stock up on food and ice-cream because you went to the gym today? There's a grocery store for you. (Yes, on campus.)

Want to get breakfast/lunch/dinner? There are multiple dining places on campus for you!

There's also a bookstore that sells all kinds of shit from shampoo to pillows, and there's usually a college "currency" that makes it really convenient for you to buy stuff on campus, as opposed to real money.

Laundry?

Don't even talk to me about laundry. All you gotta do is walk a few floors down or up, and you'd get like a thousand washing machines at your mercy. Okay, maybe not a thousand. More like one hundred.

You literally don't have to leave the campus at all if you don't want to. You can go to class, get dinner, go back to your dorm, repeat cycle tomorrow.

Life becomes stupid, literally, when you get stuck in one place. I hate it. I feel like I'm being sucked into this spiral, voluntarily and involuntarily, because 1. I'm so busy that I don't have time to get out of campus 2. I get so tired after I'm busy 3. I'm so busy and tired but I still insist on sleeping and cuddling with this guy I really like until like 2 in the afternoon.

So.

Life's fucked up.

But.

I guess I could always use the excuse that it's only my freshman year, I've only been here for barely two months, but some things happen often enough for you to recognize them as patterns. And I see my pattern as this tired, worn-out but horny college girl who doesn't have time to go out and see the outside world.

And I really hate that. Rochester might not be the greatest city in America, but it's a city in America nonetheless, and that can be pretty awesome. There's currently this gay film festival going on that I'm missing, there are so many events going all around the city and there's this kick-ass art gallery that I've never even set foot in yet. Also because smaller cities in America aren't too big on the whole cab thing ... sucks. So it's hard for me to get around whenever I want, and however I want. Between Malaysia's sketchy cab drivers and America's non-existent ones, I really don't know who I'm rooting for. Really.

But gah. I am a freshman. And I've only been here for barely two months. That's right, keep telling yourself that.

I swear, by my third year I'm moving out. So I can get a car. First I gotta learn how to drive a car. Properly. Americans may be rude drivers too, but they don't cause accidents very much. So I should learn how to do that. And then I'll be able to get around. And go to events, and shows, and art galleries, and stuff.

And then when I get back to KL I'll be like left-hand drive? What left-hand drive?

And once I'm able to legally buy beer here I probably won't complain so much anymore. It's going to be all good.

PS - Goddamnit I haven't even been to New York City yet!!! And before I thought I'd be partying it up there every weekend. Or Toronto ... oh whatever happened to Toronto ... I don't even have a Canadian visa yet. I totally underestimated the commitments I'd be piling onto my Asian shoulders.

Sowing seeds of pessimism since 2009.

2010-10-11T04:59:00.001-04:00

So today I got a little insight into the roots of my beliefs, back to where it all started and why it all started. And boy am I such a coward.

Yes, I said it. I'm a coward. I'm fucking scared of hopes and expectations and closeness with human beings, and that is why I live the way I live. And over time those fears evolve into substantial reasons to terminate all emotions associated with monogamy, and to diversify.

To have many hopes and expectations, and make them short-term or dispensable. To have closeness with as many, many human beings as possible, and at the most primitive level only.

And it worked out well for me. As well as a way of life built on substantial fears could.

Really, all those people who preach love, saying things like 'If you don't try, how would you ever know?" or "Be brave, and go out and get love!" or "Bla bla bla" ... seriously. What do they know? Have they gotten love just because they've "reached out and grabbed it"? Or were they also being torn apart in the process, and is currently being torn apart in the process of breaking up with the same person, one-and-a-half years later? True story.

I think building your life on substantial fears, in this department anyway, is the way to go. So what if I avoid feelings just because I'm scared of getting hurt? What good comes out of putting yourself out there, getting hurt, arguably also getting the relationship, but having it end in pieces someday anyway?

People say being in a relationship teaches one life lessons. Wtf kind of life lessons are these?! Been there, done that, nope didn't get any life lesson out of it except that I do not want to remain with the same guy for more than a month.

I think I get more life lessons exploring the primitive instinct and interactions of human beings. By that of course I'm talking about sex. So arbitrary and careless, yet it overpowers all in decision-making, cutting across every cross-section of humanity. A lot of things to explore there.

Relationships, on the other hand, have shit to offer you. Guys, you're just going to go through the same formula over and over again. You think you're learning something new with every relationship, you think you're learning more about yourself and the world out there, but you're not.

All relationships are the fucking same! Why? Because people are all the fucking same!

We're not talking about a war here, where if you don't step up and put yourself in harm's way to defend something you honor, you are going to be missing a lot of valuable life lessons. Not to mention like your dignity. We're talking about relationships, which are stupid, petty emotional warfares at most, and there is just nothing to be learned from them.

What? What can you learn from relationships that you don't already know? That you can be a better person? Dude I get that just by listening to stories about the people of Sudan.

Okay, whatever. Back to myself.

I fear caring for people, and focusing that hope onto one person, because I'm scared of what will happen if I don't get back what I think I deserve, or if things just don't go the way I want it to. It's a risky business, this love thing. If you preach love, you should know that. And I'm saying no, I don't want to reach out and try to grab something that is so blatantly not there. No, I don't want to put myself out there, in this field of stray bullets, and risk being shot in the head - and will probably be shot in the head.

Who would want that for themselves? Who would want to intentionally put themselves in the way of harm?? Would you stand in front of a bullet if you knew it was coming?

Yes, I am saying that just because I know something is bound to go wrong down the road, I am cutting that road off from myself now. Yes, I am cowering in fear from the imperfections because I don't want them to infect me.

So many things could go wrong, May Zhee! So many! He could stop calling, or take a minute longer than usual to reply your texts, or you could start getting this thing called jealousy at the sight of other girls around him, and you would care.

You would care.

You would care!

Care is bad. You don't want care. Fuck care.

And even if you didn't choose to end this road myself, right at this moment, he could be saying, "I don't want this girl." And then voila, the road has ended itself for you.

It's so disgusting the way things like that work.

If someone can answer me this: why should I get hurt?

If someone can answer me that, give me reasons good enough to convince me that running away from very substantial fears is actually bad, that the goodness a relationships brings outweighs the anguish it causes (first you have to convince me the "goodness" is actually good. And no I don't buy into the whole "oh so warm and fuzzy when a guy cares for you" ... you know what I find warm and fuzzy? World War II videos. Yeah shut up), that being shot in the head is actually good ... then I concede my argument.

Now, if you may, I have a hair appointment tomorrow at 3 to color over my unseemly roots.

Untouchable.

2010-10-07T02:55:00.000-04:00

Shit. My roommate stirs when she hears the sounds.

She is now awake, staring at me in strange disbelief. Man, this sucks. I thought she was asleep and I could finally do it. Trying to be sneaky and all. Gahhhhhh.

I start to freak out and tell her to go back to sleep, and that I'm really not doing it. Just go to sleep.

And she did.

Until I start it up again, and she stirs, AGAIN.

Man, I just can't finish this, can I?

I freak out with double the intensity from before, really fucking embarrassed now, like genuinely embarrassed, and I tell her to go back to sleep and that I'm really not doing whatever she thinks I'm doing. Again.

I asked her if she could hear me, which is why she woke up, and she said yes, so I told her I would tone it down a little.

In the end, I just decided to use my earphones. I could have easily avoided getting caught listening to Taylor Swift's Untouchable by her in the middle of the night if I was smarter and used them from the start.

Man. She's going to give me so much shit for this tomorrow.

Day 34 of college, surviving.

2010-10-04T21:08:00.000-04:00

Before:

Oh Day One, how innocent you were.

After:

"Are you communist?"
"No, I'm just an admirer of history."
(Repeat twenty times.)

I thought I would spruce the room up a little, but who am I kidding. This is how it's going to look everyday, and this is how the world will see it as. Except my mom. Don't show my mom. She'll be appalled, and will probably fly over to lecture me.

Day 34 of college, surviving.

These things I cannot say.

2010-09-30T14:06:00.000-04:00

Oh cute news editor! The only reason I did a piece this week is because I think you are so very cute, and I cannot say no to you! I am so professional.

College boys, you are all idiots. (Offence up for grabs!)

My aim by the end of this year is to offend all my hallmates by making them privy to my waste disposal habits, in all its glorious forms. :D

Runway models, Cadillacs and liquor bottles.

I need a Brazilian wax more than I need anything else in the world right now. Just saying.

I just walked through a couple. Yes, through. You know how when two people are holding hands and you walk past and they somehow have to part ways to accommodate your fat, single body coming in between them? Yeah I just had that. I can never understand how feeling warm and fuzzy inside knowing that one guy cares for you and loves you can ever beat the thrill of fucking and leaving. And so I'm not even gonna try.

Between myself, and myself, I think I'm overachieving a little lesser now. I'm learning to say no to things, hence why I actually finished my work for the day at a whopping 11.23pm, and I have all this time to just fuck around. And it took steps as simple as: not trying to fit something to do into every little space of time I have, leave a meeting when I have to, not when I want to (which is usually like two hours after the meeting is over), not voting for myself even though I'm in the running, recognizing that I can't even meet the extremely minimal time commitment of this community service club, subsequently dropping it ... and I feel so much better.

On the other hand, again let's keep this between us (me and me), I am having the most serious case of resume-itis ever. No further descriptions needed. Takes one to know one. I'll give you a hint: "But children don't look good on my resume..." Hahahahahhahaha I'm going to hell.

"damn why he never brings her out wan ive bumped into him so many times WITHOUT HER it's so annoying.

then i realise, you never bring your sex toy out in public." - Awesome person

The Vagina Monologues.

Hmm.

Okay bye.

2010-09-27T03:43:00.000-04:00

What's really happened this Sunday:

5am - 1pm: Sleep

1pm - 2pm: Wake up, shower, eat

2pm - 5pm: Continue sleep

5pm - 6am: Eat, work

6am - 10am: Sleep

My body's perception of what happened this Sunday:

5am - 1pm: Sleep!

1pm - 2pm: Ooh, breakfast time.

2pm - 5pm: Yay afternoon nap time! (That ... lasts ... for ... three ... hours ...?! My body's nationality must be Spanish!)

5pm - 6am: Lunch time!

6am - 10am: Nighttime!

I am so fucked up.

Did social networking create our needs, or did our needs create social networking?

2010-09-26T22:24:00.000-04:00

Food for thought.

Because if you told me four years ago that a website that lets people post their thoughts in 140 characters would become popular, I would have been like, get out of here. Or something to express my annoyed disbelief.

But now like everyone has Twitter. Even the most unlikely people have Twitter.

President Medvedev, is that you!??!

Things like that.

And blogs. What's up with this blog thing?!

And don't even get me started on Facebook. If someone told me (following the same format of above) that today people would sit in front of their laptops for hours just staring at their newsfeed, I would have been like, get out of here! Again! And stay out!

I think social networking definitely created our needs, because five years ago I really didn't need to go on Faebook just to talk to my friends. Or update my status to tell the world I am pulling an all-nighter (which I am). Or untag myself from ugly photos. Or have ugly photos online to start with. (Curse you Facebook!!!)

Just some thoughts I stumbled upon while shitting.

Okay back to work

Lifeblood.

2010-09-25T04:27:00.000-04:00

Inseparable, that's what we are.

He is always on my mind, on the go, accessible to me at any hour of the day and I would never, ever shut him off. He is just always right there, peeping out at me right now, even as I am typing this about him.

He keeps my life together. Really, he does. He's my rock. I wouldn't know what I'd do without him. He never fails to let me know if something's going on, from meetings to parties, and parties to meetings.

Sometimes, he can be a pain. I gotta admit. Having to check up on him everyday can get pretty stressful, and sometimes you feel like you need to take a break from him.

Like all healthy relationships do, I guess.

But I'm just addicted, really. I become a totally different person around him. I am a total procrastinator, I am so disorganized, and I cannot use technology for shit, but around him, I'm a totally different person. He makes me a better person. No, he makes me want to be a better person. He holds all the hope I have for the world, quite literally, and he has never, ever let me down.

Not even once. Never. Ever.

Ah, the bond a person forms with her e-mail account is a special thing indeed.

Or, you know, maybe it's just the fear that if I don't check my e-mails at every one-hour interval I might see 53 new messages in one go and that can be very discouraging. To life in general. I lose the will to live, I want to fling myself off the tallest thing I can find, I swear never to use technology again ...

But come on. Bond. Fear. Same thing.

This blog post was inspired by how I realize I leave my e-mail window open even as I sleep so that I can easily check my e-mail the first thing when I wake up.

So yeah. My e-mail. It's my lifeblood, the reason my heart beats, the fire of my loins, all that rubbish. I hope you've enjoyed this pointless post, that I cannot seem to end.

End.

Fuck.

2010-09-23T00:28:00.005-04:00

Update: Okay. So. After looking back on what happened last night, I realize I was probably describing the symptoms of a ... fever. -_-

It hit me full on today, and my face started feeling warm, but I was getting the chills inside, and my head felt so heavy that if I bent even slightly I would have keeled over and everyone would have thought I was wasted at 3pm because in college that's what everyone would first assume when you see someone keeling over even though I'm really this nerd who doesn't do shit on weekends except go to debate tournaments and does community service and consults her schedule even when she wants to just use the bathroom.

Me? Get drunk? Psshh never :)

***

Why it's really fucking AWESOME to study at 3am, instead of whenever constitutes as normal for you:

1. It gives you a sense of urgency. Add that to fear, pure, unadulterated FEAR, of not completing your homework and you get: efficiency! Stalin understood that concept, and he wasn't the brightest person on earth.

2. No one bugs you at 3am. Why? Because NO ONE IS AWAKE AT 3AM. That's right. Again, Stalin understood that concept. Wipe out the opposition, purge everyone, kill 348394299324 of your people, and you solve their problems! More grain for everyone! HURRAHHH

3. I don't know. I guess it's quieter.

4. Ha ha ha my fingers are really shaking from all this coffee I've force-fed myself. I feel this lightness, this unnaturally rapid heartbeat ... this growing lightness in my body, propping me awake.

5. I think my news editor is really, really cute.

6. Man 42 fucking pages to read by tomorrow.

7. I feel really cold too. Cold and light. Something is giving me the chills. I can just feel the tiredness being tucked away somewhere, probably at the back of my head where it feels really heavy, but because it's not affecting my eyes, I can manage to stay awake.

8. This is really scary. I'm cold, and I'm chilly, though they're really the same thing, my head feels light and heavy, I feel like I'm floating, and I think I'm a tad delirious.

9. How on earth did I get 991 followers on Twitter. But all I say is shit like "I take better dumps in America." Do you really wanna hear about my shitting habits? Do you? DO YOU? I guess you do.

10. To update you on my habitual man-hunting, I must say that things are certainly very different in America. It's like, everyone here is cute that ... they're not cute. I can't distinguish between cute or not anymore, and most of the time, I just end up finding someone cute, just because I have to find them cute. Does that make sense? Man I'm so tired.

11. I bet like half of the people here (in this library I'm in) will be gone by 1am, and another 25% gone by like 3am. Weaklings, all of you, WEAKLINGS. The Asian race will dominate, and you will find yourself at the mercy of our ... incredibleabilitytoutilizetime.

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH.

12. I'm so cold. So, so cold. I think I'm gonna die :(

13. I think Russian might just possibly be the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. It's the one time in my 20 years that I've had to start learning everything from its foundations. You know how people go, "Omg this Math is so hard, it's like trying to read Russian." well yeah guess what I'm doing...

Someone save me from myself. I can't take this anymore. I want to study, I really do, but all I do is procrastinate. It's okay to procrastinate, if I don't expect anything from the universe in return, but I expect so much from him.

I'm so tired
.
......
.
....
..
.
.
.
.
.........
...
...

What makes you uncomfortable only makes you stronger.

2010-09-21T05:43:00.000-04:00

I'm starting to see the two things that are going to sort of shape my course of development in college. One of them was Debate, the other, I discovered today, would come to be Playwriting.

I am currently taking a class on it, and as mentioned several times I am on board for TOOP, a performing arts group in my school. The Playwriting class I am taking changes its instructors every semester it's offered, with a different NYC playwright being flown in for a day to enlighten our young minds.

Or, you know, in my case, change the course of direction in my life bla bla bla... all that.

So we did a few exercises today, and it got me really thinking about this. This could be good for me because I specialize, almost too much, in writing first person narratives, sort of building up this one character's traits and thoughts, especially with this blog as well. So it'd be good to be able to get some (real) human interaction going on, engagement of the characters and just start, well, including other people in my stories other than just "I". Cut back on the narcissism, share the love, spread the seeds ... all that.

One exercise we did was where Jason Grote (our playwright this semester) made us all draw a place which evokes emotions in us, and we were also supposed to draw people in it, particularly one person that we feel close to.

Okay, obviously, this posed a few problems for me.

1. I am about as emotional as a study table.

2. I have no particular person that I feel close to. It is widely known (by no one but myself) that I am a very solitary person, and I am content with it being that way.

For a second I thought I did have someone I felt close to, but then I realize it was probably just the great sex, which happened like twice at most.

So, man, I don't know. What the fuck am I supposed to draw then. Something that evokes emotions ... football? (I refuse to call it bloody soccer.) I could draw a football stadium. Or maybe like a really cliche one where I see my loved ones dying in a hospital. Or a place where something bad has happened.

In the end, I settled for this imaginary place in my mind, where I'd be sitting in the middle of the room, with four huge screens as my walls, each one playing a different scene from moments in history (the Russian Revolution, Franklin D. Roosevelt's funeral train) or scenes from movies and books that really struck a chord with me (Holden Caulfield of Catcher in the Rye on his train, Meursault of The Stranger in his jail cell and Lester of American Beauty in the cheerleading scene), as well as an empty screen for me to play my story.

And because my art skill is also akin to that of a study table, I drew Vladimir Lenin as a stick figure.

I said that if this were to be a play, the books would be represented by a bookshelf and the history will just have to settle for paintings.

Notice how even through this exercise, my need for solitary confinement just shines right through.

And for the person I felt close to ... I ended up drawing a dog next to me (also poorly drawn), my justification being that if I can't feel close to humans, maybe I do more for animals.

I went for a poorly drawn Dad in the end, but standing outside this room of mine, only looking in through a window.

Then we had to write a dialog between that person and us, starting with the statement, "Do you really think you know everything there is to know?"

Boy was I glad I didn't choose the dog, though it would have produced interesting results.

So in like five or ten minutes I churned up some (what I thought was) pretty good shit. It was very emotionally charged and even made me choke up reading it, and generally I think anything I write that ends with, "You don't [know me] Dad ... you just don't ... and you don't have to. Not now, not today anyway. One day, you will, and you'll find out from someone else. You'll hear about me in someone else's words and you'll learn about me that way, and you'll learn about who this familiar stranger in your life is."

I would say that is some pretty good shit. Very much in need of polishing, but PGS all round.

There was also a certain kind of structure to the short dialog I wrote, with a slow unraveling of the story, reaching a climax, the conflict apparent - as well as a deeper, unseen conflict - and it was really engaging in a way my writing probably has never been before. I've always focused more on the "train of thought", the meditation, the rambling, pattern, so playwriting is a good change for me.

And then we had to draw our ideal writing space, and I drew my room, with a coffee machine, and the dog again (though one can never tell if it's the same dog from the other picture because of my abysmal skills ... tricky), and this time we had to draw our ideal writing mentor, and give him qualities and all that.

I chose to make my writing mentor a person from the future, whom I hope - and not hope - to meet. That way hope will remain what it is: cruel irony.

And then we had to write that person's monologue, telling us how to fix the weaknesses in our writing that we mentioned before we started drawing our ideal writing space. Mine was, trying to find a theme to write about - I have some vague ideas, but I'm trying to solidify it - and sort of shifting (almost wrote shitting, my my how much different this sentence would be if I did) the writing style from first person narrative to an actual story, so I can write something that will look equally good performed to an audience. Going from the written word, to actions of a play my audience can identify with. That was my weakness.

And so my "mentor" taught me how to change that. He said something about how I'm bipolar, and that I contradict myself at every turn, how I know I have both sides but I lean more towards one side, and how I'm too afraid to explore the other, like how it's not true I don't have emotions for anyone, I do - and in fact I easily do - but it's just that I find it equally easy to leave them, how I have to learn to love and feel and be normal, and that is how I will learn to transform the written word into real actions of real people.

What a bunch of bullshit. Who the fuck does this mentor think he is.

I should also add that in this "writing space" of mine my mentor is sleeping in my bed while I sit on the floor with my laptop. Oh yeah. I fucked my mentor.

(Okay at this point I suggest that if you're an idiot and couldn't keep up with my story just ... nevermind. The mentor is not actually real. I created him.)

It's no secret that I like to write late into the night, like right now it's 5.20am, and what better time to write than after passionate sex.

Of course I didn't tell that to the class. "Bedroom" would have been a sufficient explanation.

And then Jason Grote gave us all individual writing assignments, and I got one which required me to write a scene between two characters who want something from each other, but either one of them, or both, are lying to each other, and I get to decide if the truth comes out or not.

Wow. Mind-blown or what.

It was then I realize that deception was such a common theme in my life, and writing, and it took my playwriting teacher to tell me that.

Also I realized that I write more in the realm of human interaction with each other - particularly between men and women (maybe not quite women) - and that is probably where I'm going to start.

Probably shouldn't have blurted it out in front of the whole class that I am interested in the theme of pedophilia. At the start of the class I veiled it by calling it "male maternity" - very handy, and also the subject of my 4000-word research paper in IB - but towards the end it just came out.

I can't help it, okay? I'm not to be blamed here. You don't choose your theme, your theme chooses you. There's no specific reason why I'm so attracted to the subject areas of pedophilia and communism, or why reading/writing about things like these interests me and makes me wanna continue writing them, whereas writing about other things don't.

Other than maybe because these areas are controversial and uncomfortable, hence they have much to tell me about the depths of humanity, and I'm interested in drilling that unchartered territory.

Isn't that what you people like to call "love"? How it's irrational and unjustified and how when it hits you, it just hits you?

Maybe that's me and pedophilia.

It's definitely an interesting topic to explore, or at least gives me a place to start. That fine line between fatherly care and amorous desires, tying it into the Oedipus complex and all the other PGS out there. That would just be fucking awesome.

I am learning something new about myself everyday.

And tomorrow I'm off to learn more Russian, more on American presidents, more on the structure of mythos and all that is about to start in three hours and twenty minutes.

I survive completely on coffee and knowledge. My heart beats for them.

Goodnight!

It's lost again.

2010-09-19T21:11:00.003-04:00

What swallows you whole, rips apart your self-worth, breaks down your morale, AND THEN gets to work on all the hope you thought you had for the world, AND THEN spits you back out so you have to keep living your life after you've been totally ass-raped by this monster that is the Policy-style Debate?

That sentence didn't even make sense. I think my grammar processing system got attacked too. Collateral damage.

I was gonna make (a really funny) graph on my self-worth but fuck that I have homework to do.

Basically, I'm a totally broken person now. Well, half. I've recovered a little since then, but I've been changed. For the past three days, I've been a debater. (I was at a tournament in Binghamton.)

Now that I'm back on campus, I don't know who I am anymore. I don't feel like a student. Like, what am I supposed to do tomorrow?! Do I go to classes?! Is there even life outside of Debate? I feel like an alien looking in on the planet I used to reside ... who am I ...

I feel like I have to go back to the Debate office, and curl up into a ball and roll myself under the table back and forth until the rhythmic motion drowns out my questions of life.

I can honestly say that Debate is one of the most intellectually challenging things to have been bestowed upon mankind. It's a sport, it's an art, it's human interaction at its most intense. Except for sex I really cannot think of anything else which measures up.

I have come out of it, beaten and battered, but a stronger person now.

And I got a really cool mug out of it. I needed a mug, for like coffee and water and stuff. So it's all good.

Day 15.

2010-09-15T02:44:00.002-04:00

Ran to four different locations in between my three classes to meet three different people today ... eight separate times. The logic works perfectly fine in my head but obviously you're like what the fuck May Zhee.

Debate practice for two hours.

Interviewed someone in ten minutes, wrote up an article about it tonight.

Had a meeting at 11pm, had it end at 12.30am.

Arranged meetings for my next following days. I have an average of four meetings per day ... relax, I also included small things like, meeting someone for five minutes to discuss some events/collect some papers. But freak out now when I tell you it can also be a meeting to get my SSN number, which happens tomorrow, and I've been warned it'll take up to four flipping hours of waiting.

The worst part? I don't get any shit done!!!!*#*$&@ It's just four hours of pointless waiting. Thank God for homework that comes in the form of assigned readings. (I'm thanking God for homework ... what has the world gone to ...)

Okay what else did I achieve today except not dying? I had three meals - two cereal cups and one Caesar Salad, all taken during my "five minute sit down and chill time".

Didn't get to take the nap I wanted, no surprise there.

My e-mail doesn't make sense unless you use the Search button.

Okay to make my day not seem dismal to you (it actually doesn't to me, but I can see how you might get that idea):

1. I am now part of the awesome fully student-run performing arts group - TOOP! (The Opposite of People) And I met the most awesomest people ever, the director is SO profane he's going into my good books, permanently. The 11pm meeting was them, and it's scheduled at such an odd hour so everyone can come, which I deeply, greatly, fully, intently appreciate SO MUCH you have no idea. TOOP, you're awesome!

2. Writing the article was very satisfying, and my news editor is cute. Fuck hope he doesn't see this.

3. It's 2.34am, I'm not tired yet! WEEE! And I have an 11am class tomorrow, meaning I get to wake up past ten tomorrow ... which means I can probably sneak in five hours of sleep even if I sleep at five! Can I get a FUCK YEAH?

At this point everything I blog about is just jibberish to you, isn't it. And you just think my life is really sad, don't you.

It's really not. I'm enjoying all this shit okay. That'll sound more convincing once I get the fruits of my effort. FRUITS YOU HEAR ME. That'll sound a little less menacing in time too...

Really at this point I'm just blogging for the sake of documenting my days now (and to constantly take a crap on your face). It is now Day 15 of college, and I am coping.

But it is a little sad that I missed meeting someone I am fully planning on fucking in the future. Whoa hold on wait a second here maybe I should be reviewing how much time I'm spending on academic/activities if it's going to start taking up my men time ...

Yeah even if you see me sprawled on the floor, half-dead, you will never, ever catch me "reviewing how much time I'm spending on academic/activities". But if it's going to mess with my men time, my precious men time ...

Okay solving this issue tomorrow. Got Russian 101 to do, and it's going to be a Pain In The Ass. Bye!

A whole new meaning to 9 to 5

2010-09-13T23:37:00.002-04:00

9.15am – Wake up, stumble out of bed into bathroom
9.18am – Really wake up
10am – Went for pap smear so I can continue having sex
10.15am – Found out apparently you don’t have to go for a pap smear every 6 months, and that an annual check-up will do. Intrigued by where I got this 6 months thing from. Did it anyway, just because it’s good for the soul to know you’re clean … or won’t be breaking out into warts anytime soon.
10.45am – Rushed to get milk, have my usual quick seven-minute breakfast while reading the news (homework)
10.55am – Run! If it’s 10.57am. Otherwise I walk gracefully…
10.58am – Walked into wrong building, FML.
11am to 11.50am – In Russian 101, getting my brains blown out by the shit-hard nature of this language
12pm – Back to dorm for a reason I can’t remember anymore because noon seems like a far away galaxy to me now …
12.20pm – Leave for next class, Playwriting.
12.50pm – Find out class doesn’t start until next Monday, otherwise would have been a two hour and forty five minutes class. Oh and yes of course I sat like an idiot for twenty minutes waiting for the teacher to swagger in before finding out there’s no class today.
1.15pm – Believe it or not dear mighty Lord, I did my laundry.
3.15pm – This whole period was a blur to me. I think I attempted to do some work, reading … mostly just waiting for my laundry so my life revolved around that for a while.
3.25pm to 4.40pm – Russia Now class (history/current events on Russia, where I learn about politics and Putin)
5pm – Eating two of the greasiest, oiliest pizzas you can never imagine eating in your life .. if you’re not Americano. (Oh hey I didn’t actually like do anything else while eating here, I remember now … wow I can relax a little. Heh.)
5.45pm – What should be nap time, but became work-time-in-library-because-I-want-to-sleep-at-2am-tonight-instead-of-4-like-last-night

Well I’m writing this right now, so the next few events have not happened yet. But what basically should happen, if you know the heaven and stars are all aligned, is…

7pm – Debate meeting
9pm – LOGOS (a literary publication) meeting
9.30pm – Back to Debate if stuff is still going on
10pm – Now, or at some point before, drop by Campus Times office to see if I can get some copywriting done.
10.30pm – Want to sleep so bad … so bad …
10.31pm – Procrastinate. This is my form of recreational activity, don’t judge me for it. You guys have your TV shows, your music, your … this thing called naps that I’m really unfamiliar with, except when I fall headfirst into my laptop … your socializing with friends and all that, I have my procrastination to relief my stress. And it’s awesome because my procrastination covers all of your activities :)
12am – Probably start doing homework now. Last minute is my middle name.
4am – Sleep, and really hate myself for this tomorrow.

I just wanna have a normal life, but I won’t let me. I just won’t.

PS - Okay this is what really happened.

7pm - Debate meeting
10pm - End. Fucking. Meeting. (Don't get me wrong, I love Debate ... I just also love to use the word "fucking".)

At precisely 8.50pm (I checked), I decided I'm not gonna go to the LOGOS meeting, because I'm already part of a publication on campus and if I want to do four other categories of activities, I cannot have another publication under my belt. I just ... cannot. I'm already close to what Matt(hew Pang) calls a "freshman burn-out" and if I don't manage what I already have, I'm going to end up in the counseling office, rocking back and forth on the psychiatrist chair, sobbing about my problems (yes I have given this thought).

No time for procrastination, I'm at the library already working on my homework, and tomorrow's homework, because tomorrow is going to be an equally long day, with an equally packed schedule (debate practice right after class, 5-7pm, then gonna write and copywrite articles for Campus Times, and at 11pm I have another meeting ... yeah, 11pm). So yeap, just another normal day. I think an abnormal day would be when I don't have:

a) Two meetings back-to-back
b) Meetings that go past 9pm or10pm, even

Now I'm sitting here in the library, with my white hot chocolate from Starbucks (these things are soooo good why don't they have them in Malaysia?!) and half-eaten Marble Loaf with an essay on story structures waiting to be written.

Corporate America, here I come.

2010-09-13T03:29:00.001-04:00

My alternate life.

2010-09-13T03:23:00.003-04:00

You know what? If it's really true there's an alternate route for the universe and my free will, I bet the other fucktard of a May Zhee is sitting on a beach somewhere, enjoying some Mango Tango drink with those pretentious mini umbrellas.

Pretentious mini umbrellas, you hear me universe?

She would lead a relaxed life of no major responsibilities or unattainable goals. She would just go to school, work hard to do well (not work crazy), join activities that take minimal effort (not maximum, and then some more)... okay that's all I can think of.

I find it hard to even picture what a relaxed life is.

I see some of my friends do it, and I observe them through squinted eyes, and try to understand them and their nonchalance about where they're heading in life.

"I don't have to have a major yet. I'm undecided. It's fine. I can just go through my first semester of college, just taking a bunch of classes that point me in no direction. Really. It's fine."

(Okay I'll make the next one less sarcastic. I really didn't mean that, sorry.)

(Btw just for general information this is how I structure my classes for now: one class required for major, another class required for second major, one foreign language, one exploratory class.)

(Just saying.)

"I can just sit here and eat my lunch. I can just focus on doing that, eating my lunch, and not have ten things marathoning through my mind. In fact, I don't even need to focus. It's just the act of chewing ... and chewing ... and chewing ..."

"I can look at the list of student organizations on campus and not feel stressed to scan through them all and decide which is good for me and which if I don't join will not be robbing me of a bright future. I also don't find myself interested in every area of humanities because of my extremely open and keen mind."

"I don't have to overachieve. In fact, I am not here to achieve anything. I am here to go to class, and eat, and sleep. Oh, and do laundry."

I haven't done laundry.

I'm feeling nervous, or it could just be exhaustion in disguise.

I'm not sticking around to find out. Over and out.

I like it.

2010-09-13T03:04:00.001-04:00

Secretly, inside, I think I like it.

I like having five meetings on a SUNDAY, and having to do my homework at 1AM, then going to SLEEP at 4am. I think it thrills me to have things to do, to be busy, to be running around the goddamn campus.

I'm not even being sarcastic here. I don't know. I'm so tired and exhausted (but still hopeful of the future) that I can't tell anymore. I'm so tired.

I want sleep, but I also want to read the mountainous amount of Russian news waiting for me in my e-mail. I want to read about Putin.

Oh, Putin.

Oh, sacred sleep. My two loves.

Abrupt topic change! You know what's strange about college? You would think people are all fuck and go here, but noo. There are so many couples in college it's like a disgusting melting pot of goo and cooties.

I just feel so sorry for them. I barely remember the time when I looked at couples and went, "I want one." Now I just at them and muahaha to myself that they don't know what shit they've gotten themselves into.

Abrupt topic change version 2! My roommate looked up ten scary fact about childbirth, and I swear, these things floating around the web are like reinforcements of my beliefs. I am so glad I don't want children. All these facts don't bother me, not in the least bit. Hahahha other women of the world, suckers.

I don't know. What other lily leaves can I randomly hop on to about. Anymore censure on relationships? No. Harping on and on about men in different yet so inherently similar ways? Maybe. Being able to sleep at 4am if I get off this stupid blog and start on my Russian readings?

Definitely.

Okay.

2010-09-10T01:46:00.024-04:00

I should probably stop sounding so bitter. And unappreciative and ungrateful of everything around me. I should like my birthday and every meal I can get and my limbs and ... you know it's coming ... kids in Africa.

Yay! It's my birthday! Oh what a joyous occasion! The day I was born! Oh the love and joy that just jump right at you from this joyous occasion!

Okay I will list some things I like about birthdays:

- Being able to demand anything you want.

Er, that's it.

Because that's the only thing about birthdays that don't require expectations to be happy about.

Great now I just sound like ten times more bitter than I did before I published this post. I'm really not that bitter of a person... I'm really not ... it's just sometimes ... I guess sometimes ... I mean sometimes ... LOOK A GROUNDHOG!

My birthday is coming up. Ew.

2010-09-09T14:18:00.006-04:00

Yeah, not a big fan of them. I'm basically not a big fan of anything that gives you high expectations, and then crushes them anyhow, because they were so high to begin with. And what do you mean have lower expectations then? How about you try NO EXPECTATIONS then? Because if you're going to have low expectations, you might as well not have any.

Bullshit.

Story of my life.

And as you can see I don't really observe any major celebrations, because I'm bored of them. So very bored. Maybe if I celebrate Groundhog's Day or July 4th for the first time or something. I'm so obnoxious.

ANYWAY, point of this post is, I'm listing what I want for my birthday. And it's really not much, they're all pretty realistic, and should be gotten back to me:

(When I said realistic it means they're boring, so you might wanna stop reading now.)

1. I wanna know where the fuck my IB scores went. Seriously. Why aren't they in my college's records or something like that? I want my goddamn transfer credits I didn't get my 7s for nothing. (Actually I did, but nevermind that let me just go on being angry. I really hate birthdays.)

2. My goddamn insurance medical card?!?!?!?!?!? Where did that go?!?! Is there a universe out there with my IB scores and medical card and all my other lost items just floating out there?!?!

3. My Soviet Union flag came so thank God for that. It's hanging in my room right now. Would be nice if my Communist poster came too on my birthday.

4. People would come and loft my bed so I can push my laundry basket in there and my underwear won't be in plain sight.

5. To find my rightful path in life. (Meaning I want to be able to FUCKING decide what student organizations I am genuinely interested in, and if it's the right one for me, and if I'd still be willing to commit my time and soul and energy to it when I'm bogged down by work from all directions at like 4am in the morning and I want to die... and the only person who would be able to tell me this is unfortunately this big fat old man called Time and I fucking hate him.)

6. I would have the time, just THE TIME, yes all I need for my birthday is this thing called Time, to go visit the Career Center in my school, and this person who's the Director of Open Letters.

I'm going to have such a disgusting birthday this year. I'm going to be chilling with my family, who are leaving Saturday, because I have been so busy this whole week with meetings after class and class after meetings.

Oh well, at least it's better than like a lame-ass birthday party where no one you really want to come, comes. That would be a truly horrible birthday. Peace out.

Our whole universe was in a hot dense state...

2010-09-07T01:17:00.003-04:00

1. I swear, the weather in America is trying to brainwash me, just like everything else in this country (come... join us ... be American ... we care about you ... embrace us ... oops nope sorry can't have a green card fuck off). I came here from MALAYSIA, hating the cold at first, then it started becoming really hot for two days, and then I found myself hating the heat like I've never hated anything in my life before (except maybe STDs and pregnancy and that sort of thing) and now I'm wishing for the cold. What have I gotten myself into?!?! Weird-ass country.

2. This is on my Twitter, but today I've realized that maybe my ego is not so big that no one can deflate it ... but that it's actually really small and sneaky that it finds its way AROUND things. Because there has to be an explanation for why my ego cannot be broken. I got rejected by Ivies, I am virtually in a class with upperclassmen and I literally learn a new piece of historical fact whenever someone just speaks, I am meeting people way smarter than I am in college ... but I still think I'm fucking awesome. I don't know ... how, really. Someone should give me an award for that. Or at least for my ego.

It's true. I'll show you how my mind works, you'll be so disgusted you're going to leave my blog, then come back because you love me, then leave it again. So say someone is from a higher level and does better than me in class, my mind goes, wow it's just going to be a lot more awesome when I do better than him/her in class. And if that happens, good. My ego is served. If it doesn't, I think my ego just finds its way around it, by saying things like, "It's okay you still do this and this better" or "It's okay you will do this and this in the future" or "It's okay your mom still loves you".

Amazing, right?

And if I do meet someone who is evidently and concretely more awesome than I am (say someone who is the President of a country) ... well if you're a girl I would hate you. If you're a guy I would try to sleep with you, and if not I'll be friends with you, and if not, I'll just ... let you carry on with your life I guess, and use the above system of my ego to make myself feel better.

Look, I don't even try to okay. It just turns on itself automatically. I'm sorry I have a self-serving ego and you don't. (See it just did it again.)

3. I'm procrastinating as I type. I'm such a multi-tasker.

4. So you know how back in KL I'm all casual and love-them-and-leave-them with men? Well you'd be glad to know I'm perpetuating that practice of mine ... with my courses and activities. Oh my God. Have I seen a larger variety of "meat", and with stronger powers of attraction, anywhere else? NO. The courses and activities in college, in the men equivalence, would be like Andrew's Models (top modeling agency in Malaysia with hottest men ever). I want everything on the menu, I like everything on the menu, well I WANT EVERYTHING ON THE MENU.

I can't have everything on the menu. It's like when you have your period and you have to stop. That was such a bad analogy I'm not even going to apologize for it.

Point is, I need to employ the fuckbuddy system with courses and student organizations here. I am going to have to go try out all the courses and activities that interest me, get everything good out of it WHILE not getting too attached to any one of them so as to make our parting painful and be able to casually flip one course/activity for another.

Do not get attached, May Zhee. I repeat, DO NOT. Do not have feelings for anything/anyone. They're not going to care about you. They pretend to care, they reel you in with their sweet nothings and cajoling on their posters, use their moves on you so you would stay for another day or two ... and then they get you HOOKED on them and you can't leave. Oh they'll make you think you're the one, May Zhee, they will. They'll make you think that they NEED you, that you're THE ONLY ONE, that they can't FUNCTION without you, but it's all lies. Liessssssssss. They would get another editor/debater/Undergraduate History Council member in a snap of their fingers.

Don't get attached. Period.

5. I really just write things here that come across my mind, especially in conversations, and I just said another. So you know how I'm an overachiever? Well I'm also an awesome procrastinator, and I don't know how they go together, but apparently they do and it's worked out pretty well for me for two years. Even emerged with a 42 in IB, who would have known.

6. Physics/Engineering students are my new favorite breed of people! They were before, back when I heard some stories from some friends who were Engineering majors, and today I met some more of them, and it was our discussion on the theory of predeterminism or free will that sealed the deal.

7. Turns out the only good thing about me not having any classes on Fridays ... is so I can leave on a five-hour car ride for debate tournaments and debate my weekend away. Wow. In college you can do as little or as much as you want, and trust me when I say, if you choose the latter, you'll get pretty brain-damaged soon. But I guess you get used to it. I got used to IB.

8. Actually I take that back. I never did get used to IB. I cried and complained all the way till the end, and begged my mom to take me home.

8a. There was that strange mystery of the 42 though hmm...

9. I really should be memorizing the Russian alphabet now.

10. Fuck I'm probably gonna do it at 4am aren't I. Why the fuck am I exactly the same person when I've left KL!?!??!??!!??!?! I thought I was reformed! I am such a government.

11. To extend on point 7, college really keeps you in check. Like it provides you the paths, but it never quite pushes you onto them (unless your name is Columbia University and you have ten thousand required courses), and it's totally your call to make the choices. It trains you on making choices, and I respect whatever that does not push choices upon you.

And it's your choices, not your dad's, or your teacher's, or your moral compass', but yours. No one but you. And for someone like me, who loves partying, I keep myself in check because I value my education (especially with such awesome classes and activities) more than partying and boys (they're boys now, not men, gotta call them boys). Or ... just as much. You can never really draw a fine line so let's leave it at that.

Okay I'm going to go walk down my dorm in a towel, take a shower and come back here and do homework. I will not compulsively check my e-mail, or worry about my mobile data usage, or think about cute Physics/Engineering kids. I will not. I will not start work at 4am, or 3am. I will go now. I will not listen to Hold Me Tight for the hundredth time. I will not eat another Mini Pretzel. I will not groan and curse at my computer.

Our whole universe was in a hot dense state, then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait...

The Earth began to cool the autotrophs began to drool Neanderthals developed tools ... we built a wall (we built the pyramids!) ... Math science history unraveling the mysteries that all started with

THE BIG BANG!

The Overachieving Asian Bitch and her twenty three sins.

2010-09-05T00:00:00.001-04:00

So before I came to college I told myself I would try to join student organizations of these categories (listed in matters of importance):

1. Writing/publication
2. Event organizing
3. Teaching/education/literacy (focus of community service)
4. Start something new
5. Do something for the Rochester community

Today, one week into college, these are the list of organizations I'm interested in.

1. Art and Art History Undergraduate Council
2. Modern Languages and Cultures Undergraduate Council
3. Undergraduate English Council
4. Undergraduate Film Council
5. Undergraduate History Council
6. Pride Network
7. Sexual Health Awareness Group (SHAG) (acronyms man)
8. Women's Caucus (because they sponsor the production of The Vagina Monologues. That is just too fucking awesome)
9. 2014 Class Council/Hall Council
10. Urban Exploring
11. Circle K
12. Partners in Reading
13. Campus Activities Board
14. Cinema Group
15. UR Concerts
16. Debate Union
17. Thelion Society
18. The Opposite of People (TOOP) (it's a theater group)
19. Campus Times
20. LOGOS (literature and artsy-fartsy group. Love it)
21. URTV (they said I could be famous... they said ...)
22. WRUR (radio)
23. Student Associations Government

Erm, yeah.

So in addition to adding "Student Government", "Academic Groups" and "Performing Arts" to my interests, I also have up to seven different organizations under one interest (look at the number of academic organizations ... I have no words ...), some very time-intensive groups and three groups with very similar workings.

Oh my God I just showed my dad the list of organizations I've circled out of all the organizations on campus. I think he's going to hit me. Probably shouldn't have written *****THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES next to the women's group either. (And he doesn't know about my internships/jobs/study abroad plans yet.)

Luckily I am heartless and morally challenged, and so the various Awareness and Community Service clubs did not appeal to me. Neither did the environmental groups. Those are some other people's problems. I am able to channel my interest to only my Teaching/Education/Literacy category.

But 23 is still a whole fucking lot of student organizations to be interested in. I actually wrote this blog post so I can list down my organizations and see for myself how ridiculous it is. Well I see it now. I cannot possibly have 23. That's on top of classes, work, internship (if I decide to start) and this thing called sleep.

So this is what I need to do now:

1. Narrow down my list. Not to 20, not to 19, but to ... I don't know. Something that shows I do not have serious issues.

2. Prioritize. Separate the organizations into things I'm doing because I want responsibilities, and those I'm doing out of enjoyment hence fuck responsibilities. But knowing my overachieving Asian ways, these two will probably overlap and I will be fucked.

3. Make decisions. I cannot afford to have three very similar groups or else I won't be able to focus on one and give it my all. MUST. CHOOSE. ONE.

4. Decide if I really want to join the Student Government ... and if it should be this year. I mean, politics and popularity aren't my thing, but at the same time I do like responsibilities and defying authority. That's not what a student government is about? Sure.

5. Keep organizations that will help me with my majors, so Undergraduate History Council, you are here to stay.

6. Find out meeting times and events and write them all down, and look at them as a whole. Drop clubs that are too time-intensive, and I don't have THAT much of an interest in to sacrifice my sleep/socializing time.

7. Get some serious therapy on my overachieving ways. I think I signed up for some organization that helps students manage stress ... oh fuck won't that make my groups 24?!?!?

I'll just ignore that.

I don't know man. You can take the girl out of Asia, but you can't take Asia out of the girl. This is the race that calls B+ a "bad grade", anything not stick thin as "fat" and sets ridiculously high standards for everything in life.

On the classes side, things have been smoothened out since you've heard about a similar freak-out like this in that department. I am currently taking a very hands-on English class that actually makes us go watch plays, films, author readings and things like that for our grades. It's like paying me to do something I love! This is what happens when you choose the major you love instead of ... my-dad-told-me-to-take-Chemical-Engineering-so-I-will. My teacher also swears about every five minutes in class. I knew then that I was in the right class.

I'm also taking a class on American presidents, taught by a former presidential speechwriter and who has written for just about all the newspapers I can only dream of writing for. On the far end of the spectrum, I'm taking Russian 101 and a history/currents event class on Russia, and I am about to have my Soviet Union flag delivered to my dorm address :)

I am also taking Playwriting! New avenue of expression, you see.

So yes college is going great. If you follow me on Twitter, you'll see that I really miss the parties and the men in KL, but then again it's also because I'm reacting like I've been here for three months when it has only been a week. Not really missing the food, but it's because I'm not missing food in general.

Okay gonna go back to sorting out my list of organizations, and hopefully come up with a dream list.

Or just something that is not 23.

America in 1323 words, and a picture of a groundhog.

2010-09-02T00:39:00.003-04:00

Okay so about America. I'm feeling pretty shitty right now so it's probably a good time to write about it.

I know last week or so I was so gung-ho about it, but now I'm just severely confused. I also have to do my laundry later, so I'm scared AND confused.

I mean, it was good in the ways I expect it to be. Coming from a country that is struggling to even budge a little from the same damn spot, America was a welcomed change for me. It was modern, advanced - and I don't just mean in the technological "oh-hey-my-toilet-bowl-washes-my-butt" way - but in terms of mentality and results that come from it.

Case in point: the Blackberry incident. I signed up for a line with AT&T, bought my first Blackberry, (named it Guacamole), had it break an hour after I left the store, went back to the store two days later, had a whole new Blackberry "set aside for me" even before I entered the store, and walked away a happy person.

People here actually care. Whether it's for their business, or their image, or because of their upbringing, they actually care. They know it's good to care. It's profitable to care. And so they care.

I feel like I matter here to the Licensed Sales Professional of HSBC Bank, to the person preparing my burrito at Chipotle, to the bus driver, to the cafeteria lady ... to the people in America, I'm actually an individual with rights, money and feelings.

I have also experienced the giant corporation that is Walmart, and I'm very impressed at the Americans' ability to create something that you cannot not love. This is the pride and joy of their country right there. Corporations. And they're doing a damn good job at it.

I also saw a groundhog.

Pretty sure it was stalking me.

I took out the trash, I am about to do my own laundry (fuck), and next week I get my Social Security number.

I know that all the above is happening, but I think why I'm so severely confused is (apart from the big pile of garbage lying in a pink basket by my bed which I use to remember calling clothes) because I don't really know anything other than what's happening on the outside. I don't know why I do the things I would normally do, and I'm sitting here just trying to understand things, but I can't ... I'm just so lost.

In KL, I understood the city. I understood myself in there. I could keep up with its pace, but here, for the time being anyway, I feel like I can't. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely not a faster pace here. It's just a different pace, but I'm still trying to keep up with it at Malaysian speed ... and I just end up being really lost in this time/space continuum I've created. Especially with college being like a whole city on its own (you literally don't have to leave the campus if you don't want to and you'll have a place to sleep, eat, shit, shower, study and fuck), it just needs time to adjust to, and during this time a lot of perplexing lapses like this can sneak in.

On the outside I'm doing great of course. The people here are awesome, Americans are great people, except for a few setbacks in the geographical and cultural awareness department, but I love them. Really. All my friends here are Americans, my roommate's the best, there's no bitchiness and judgmental snickering leftover from high school, I feel like I'm understood here more, I've found people like me, I fit in well ... and so on.

And the unmentionables that I will not mention here and will stay unmentionable (I'm under American law now so...) are okay too. Not great, but I know it'll get better, and I'm really actually having a good time on the surface.

Really.

I guess the word I'm looking for here is overwhelming. Things can get very overwhelming here if you allow them to be, and I did. I'm sitting here, just feeling so overwhelmed by absolutely nothing.

Take my situation with men, for example. Back in KL, I'm used to meeting people of different nationalities, jobs, interests and personalities. I understood my purpose with men there, and I felt like I was in control of who I met, how I met them and why I met them.

I've only been here for a week, and I've already met guys that occupy four different niches to me. There's "Totally want to do", "I think I want to do you but I also like talking to you and just being friends is fine now", "Just friends" and "I haven't gotten to you yet... but I will".

And yes the first and last are two different things.

In Malaysia I'm used to planning out my time in sections. Here, I have to do it by activities. Everything just flies right at you ... classes, friends, books, life decisions (oops you just took a wrong turn), lunch, cute guy on hallway ... and within those categories are sub-categories, also bombarding you at lightning speed, all at the same time.

You don't decide what you get to do next, who you get to meet next, what you're going to want to buy or get or do next, or who you're going to fuck next. It just happens.

This is basically what I had to do in one day: wake up at 8.30 for international student orientation BAM! Ends at 12pm go have lunch with hallmates at Pelligrinos BAM! Quickly walk to CVS to print some photos and buy some things before BAM! 1pm, gotta be back on campus to attend some undergrad research talk ... BAM! 2pm, career/internship talk ... wait you forgot, your parents are over so you gotta spend time with them ... BAM! Farmer's Market you promised your roommate to go to at 4pm ... wait you're forgetting something oh yes you were supposed to text Matt and asked if he was free to hang out before 6.

And ... did you forget ... something ... oh yeah you were supposed to talk to the office about the furniture in the room, and add/drop some classes, and call the parents, all of which you did none of.

Notice how I still try to plan my time in sections. And sorry about the BAM! BAM! BAM! thing. It's 4.04am now and I am this close to putting my head in the washer.

Okay you know what I'm just going to stop talking right now, because I don't even know if I make sense anymore. The laundry can go fuck itself. I'm going to bed. So all in all America is good, I just gotta learn to adjust to a slower and different pace, and actually having to ask numbers from the guys I'm interested in now ... strange.

More on that next time.

PS - Also, security is really all not that great here. One thing I'm probably wrong about. Hey, Americans, so you know this place called Singapore in South-East Asia? Yeah over there a girl can actually walk on the streets alone at 1am, and not have to worry about being shot or smashed with a liquor bottle because guns aren't allowed there, and drinking despite the legal age being 18 is under control. Even walking in KL at night would be relatively safer than the "bad" streets here. Because when things get bad in America, they get really bad.

But more on that next time. I'm going to bed.

PPS - Post written in time capsule btw. *** As I publish this my laundry is getting done downstairs (it really wasn't that bad ... I hope the results wouldn't convince me otherwise) and I'm feeling less shittier and I'm adapting better already.

PPPS - It's really strange just being friends with guys.

Why, hello there.

2010-08-24T17:07:00.002-04:00