I Have OOACD (Obsessive Ogling At Caucasians Disorder)

I like to look at angmo’s (which means Caucasians in Singlish). It doesn’t matter what shape, size or colour they come in—I like to look at them all. You can say that I have OOACD (Obsessive Ogling At Caucasians Disorder). I ogle at females as equally as I ogle at males. In the bus, in the train, at the supermarket or the mall: I have a special radar that alerts me to their presence, and immediately I turn and stare at them until I get slapped by them (which hasn’t happened so far).

First of all, I marvel at their superb height. Caucasian girls at 13 look 17 because of their cool stature. And while I’m 17, I look more like a 13 year old thanks to my diminutive frame.

Then comes their hair colour. It’s so naturally fabulous—brilliant ginger, flaming red, platinum blonde, rich mahogany brown… lustrous colors that hair dye can never achieve on Asian hair.

Their eyes are mesmerising. Their coloured irises give their eyes so much depth. The range of colours they come in are also mind-boggling. I clearly remember my father’s light green eyes. The intensity of the green varied according to his mood. When he was worked up, it turned really bright and almost fluorescent. His eyes pale to an almost ashy shade of green when he’s calm and serene. I used to clamour for his attention as a child because I could never quite figure out why his eyes looked so different from mine.

It suddenly seems to me, that in this corner of the globe, Asians are spending their whole lives (and quite some money as well) trying to look like Caucasians, or at least resemble them in some way. Take a walk down Orchard Road on a Saturday night, and you can see many locals trying to hard—bleached hair, coloured contact lenses, mile-high heels… It really makes me sick because everything appears all too artificial.

By now you’re probably thinking, “Hey, this Jennyspeaks person is just another Caucasian worshipper.” While I do admit that I have a unashamed admiration for them, my reasons are actually more deep than that. The truth is, I am half Caucasian. I’m half Indian as well, which makes me Eurasian I suppose.

Raised mostly by my Indian mother in tropical Singapore, and hardly seeing my British father, I never really bothered about my so-called British heritage. I was fed with curry, learnt my lah’s and leh’s, went to a local school and swore in Hokkien before I learnt my fuck you’s. To make matters more complicated, everyone in school was Chinese (with a few Malay and Indian exceptions) and I was treated as Chinese thanks to my pale skin. I even learnt Mandarin as my mother tongue. So for a good part of my childhood, I tried to be Chinese, convinced that it was my destiny. My horrible Chinese gave me away.

I was pretty culturally confused and never knew what Eurasian life was meant to be like. While I’m quite familiar with my Indian half already (with Bollywood/Kollywood films, briyani, pesky relatives, and what not), there’s a part of me that yearns for more Caucasian interaction.

Sometimes the feeling of isolation hits me. I realise that I’m the ultimate minority, wherever I go.

Most of my peers think it’s cool to be Eurasian. I do accept that being different has its perks because you tend to get noticed. But sometimes I feel like I’m one big cultural mess. I have a cultural identity crisis. It doesn’t help that contact with my father has come to a standstill. I’ve never had the chance to build firm bonds with any Caucasian people my age too.

So that is why I like to stare at Caucasians. There’s this glass wall separating me from my other half. I see likely companions in these people walking by, but I can only stare. I want to talk to them, to be friends with them, to be with reconnect with my “own kind”. But they continue walking. Then they’re gone. And then I return to my muddled existence where everyone else is Chinese, and I don’t know what I am.

Sorry Mother Mary.

I’m really really sorry Mother Mary. I promise I won’t do this again.

Stuck In A Moment

Credits: esotericwhale.com

It seems as if the gears of my life have jammed. I’m not moving forward. I’m not making a real difference to anyone. I’m just living my selfish life like a typical fathead. Nothing is happening.

Everyday is like yesterday.

I try to convince myself that it’s just a phase.

Last Night

It was 1.07a.m last night (or was it this morning?) when I came to a conclusion. I did this with R.E.M on replay, watching wispy shapes on the ceiling made by the passing headlights of cars.

The conclusion is (drumroll please)…

…no one really knows the real me.

Nothing particularly revelatory there. It’s the kind of thing people sing about. We all think we know the truth to that statement. And so did I. But it was only last night that I acutely felt the reality of it.

I’ve always been an intensely private person. I knew that right from the start, I was different in so many ways. I was aware that my skin colour differed from my peers, that my hair was curly and not straight. I was overweight. My family was different too—my father never signed my report card. I felt the need to conceal all these from people. I became ashamed about my unique situation and resolved never to reveal too much about myself to others.

While I’ve had firm friendships, I’ve never a friend whom I’ve bared my soul to. It hurts me to say this, but that’s the truth. Everyone gets a piece of me, but then again, it’s just a piece. While in recent years I’ve become more comfortable about talking about my dysfunctional family, there’s still so much I’m hoarding inside. I’m afraid that no one will really understand.

My mother thinks she knows me, but at last she doesn’t. This is particularly sad as she’s my closest friend, and yet my closest friend barely treads the tip of the iceberg that is me.

This became apparent after a short argument I had with her. I wanted so much to shake her and say, “But I’m not like that!” And then I realised that by doing so, I would be destroying her image of me. The person that she wanted me to be, all her life. So my temper deflated and I let it pass. In those few minutes, the space between the both of us widened into a gulf. She seemed a few light-years away.

At 1.07a.m last night, with R.E.M on replay, my relationships with people felt as insignificant as the shapes on the ceiling.

For the first time, I felt very much alone.

And “Oh My God” Is All We Can Say

We are so ignorant. I’m so angry. There’s so much shit happening in the world. And we all let it happen.

I’m reeling in shock from what I’ve just read about what’s happening in West Africa. Well, yes, I love current affairs and TIME magazine and all that wordy crap. And yes I’m a dork. But moving on.

You may think “Yeah, yeah, they have no food, no water, they are skinny, they can’t read and there’s AIDS. Can you tell me something that I don’t already know?”

But this more than that. It’s not just sad or heart-wrenching. It’s scary.

Everyone’s involved in this. And the scary thing is that we don’t know it.

This seems pretty ridiculous and heavy. It shouldn’t be on the average person blog. But I can’t help it. I’m so disturbed. I’m going to write an entry here soon about this. You have been warned.

Sometimes I Do Stuff.

In my 17685^th essay here, I am going to talk about my deteriorating self-esteem. Brace yourselves.

Well I don’t exactly know how to beat around the bush for this one, so I’m going to spit out the sorry truth. And the sorry truth is that I feel so worthless sometimes. Not that I’m blaming God or anyone for that. Nor do I expect any heavenly assistance for this because this is my own stupid problem. But that’s the sorry truth right there.

And the sorry truth gets sorrier: I especially have a problem with good-looking or “cool” people.

You see, whenever I speak to good-looking people or “cool” people, I automatically feel that I don’t deserve to speak to them. I feel unworthy to occupy their time. Why should they waste their time talking to losers like me? What ensues physically is that I start to clam up and babble lame things like “The weather’s so shitty”. And that probably seals the deal for them because they clam up too and give me weird looks. They’re probably thinking, “No, you’re shitty. And boring. This is the end of our conversation.”

Which really doesn’t help my self-esteem at all.

And it hurts when people stereotype you and assume that there’s nothing more to you. That you’re just a nerdy-pants who looks nerdy and lives nerdily ever after. Which may be true to a certain extent. But every nerdy-pants, though he/she may be as flat and boring as a coin, does have two sides, no?

Take for example the schoolmate who only bothers to talk to you to:

1. Find out about your grades
2. Ask if you study every day (which, for clarification, is a NO)
3. Find out about the day’s homework
4. Copy your homework

and thereafter assume that you do not exist.

I’m starting to think that all this has a link with my slouch, which has more or less reduced my backbone shape to that of a prawn’s. I’m not a Hunchback of Notre Dame yet though. Might reach that level in a few year’s time.

To conclude this depressing essay, I’d just like to say that it’s only human nature to judge and stereotype. For example I’m judging those “cool” people myself and assuming that they’re dismissing me. And similarly others judge me and assume that my main goal in life is to finish my homework. So this is how karma works then. I’ll just swallow my pride, lower my head and walk along. And maybe secretly swallow some potato chips as well.

Time Of Your Life.

As you can tell from my mundane ramblings, there is nothing spectacular about being Jennyspeaks. I’ve not had any unwanted pregnancies, wardrobe malfunctions, nipple piercings or anything that is remotely “cool” in the dictionary of Teenage-dom. And in teenage terms I’m probably best defined as “uncool”.

But maybe next year on the 14^th of January, I might be an ounce less uncool than I was before. Just maybe.

That’s because the rock band that I’ve been obsessing over ever since I started producing oestrogen is finally coming to Singapore. And locked up in my drawer lies the golden (free standing) ticket to their concert. Which had me digging into my retirement account.

Green Day Live in Singapore.

14^th January 2010.

Singapore Indoor Stadium.

*falls to the ground in reverence*

Home Improvement Madness.

Sometimes I feel that I’m slowly morphing into a middle-aged housewife.

I had a relatively carefree childhood, one that honed my free-spirited character. I didn’t understand the rationale of cleanliness (why clean something when it’s going to get dirty again?) and I could never understand my mother’s preoccupation with plastic flowers and vases.

However as I grew older, I began to feel the weight of the burdens that are associated with running and maintaining a home. Now don’t get me wrong, I do not have any particularly strong desires to behave like a housewife/homeowner. I’m just a kid. But still, being the only other person around at home to help my single mother slowly elevated my status from being “mummy’s little helper” to “mummy’s only helper”. I still did not give much thought to the weight of my role, until last month when my mother’s arthritic stabs took a turn for the worse.

And then I began to grasp the enormity of my responsibilities when my mother could no longer perform to her “full capacity”. I took charge of grocery shopping and minor chores like sweeping and dusting. In a bid to lessen the laundry load, I picked clothes carefully, opting for jeans so I could wear them a few times. I tried ways and means to earn extra cash so that my mother didn’t have to fund my transport.

I felt rather old among my friends, because while they yakked I would be making mental grocery lists or deliberating on whether the table fan needed cleaning or not. It was altogether pretty odd behaviour for an adolescent. Perhaps the one good thing that came out of my mental preoccupation with domestic matters was that I pondered less about what I could eat next.

What ensued was a period of mental torture because by nature I am a social creature. I pretty much hate pottering about the house when I know that concurrently my friends are at the beach having a barbeque. Or accompanying my mother to ogle at different sewing machines when I have no inclination towards such objects whatsoever. But I knew that as a daughter I had some filial duties and my mother depended on me. And so I suppressed my urge to slash those damn plastic flowers and did what I had to do.

In my mother’s calendar, Christmas is coming soon. And that doesn’t signal Christmas shopping but rather cleaning and pimping the house for bloodthirsty relatives. To be fair, the house isn’t in fantastic shape either. And that fact kind of hit home when things began to malfunction back-to-back, lizards began strutting around like they owned the house and cobwebs hung like chandeliers.

Here’s a glimpse of the To-Do list:

1. Clean and throw out kitchen storage cabinet
2. Clear out the storeroom and throw all the junk
3. Clear the ancient pots in the oven (with ancient food in them)
4. Cleaning of display cabinet and water pipes
5. Dispose sofa and clean the area
6. Clean behind the TV set
7. Install the DVD player
8. Install ceiling lights and clean up the aftermath
9. Dispose bedroom bookshelf and clean up
10. Empty and shift plastic cabinets to the kitchen
11. Sort out clothes, arrange in new wardrobe
12. Send the sewing machine for repair
13. Buy material for new curtains
14. Clean Kitchen cabinets and chest of drawers
15. Sell VCR, DVD Player and Desktop Computer to Karang Guni
16. Buy  full-length mirror and install it
17. Paint ceiling

And it goes without saying that I have a part to play in all of the above. Oh well, I guess that Mummy’s Only Helper has to come to the rescue!

Full Circle

“Who is Jennyspeaks?”

I first posed myself that question some two years ago, on a greasy Wednesday night. As I sat in front of the computer, fingers hovering the keyboard, there was a tinge of nervous excitement gnawing me inside. After all, it was my maiden foray into this strange activity called “blogging”. Besides, I had inherited my mother’s anti-technology genes, which only made me wary of anything electronic.

But with that question, I was free to pave the way for who I was going to be. I could single-handedly sculpt this character through my posts. I was going to have this faceless, anonymous, virtual mouthpiece. And with it I could let loose the many ideas, emotions and thoughts that were writhing around in my head.

When I finished the “answer key“ in my first post, I was smugly satisfied. I was pleased that I had managed to condense my very self into 320 words. I was also pretty sure that this was the real me, the unchanging Jennyspeaks, the young and restless lass who would be like that forever and ever, amen.

Of course that was rubbish. That answer key quickly became obsolete.

Some two years and 99 posts later, a very different Jennyspeaks is here before you.

In the weeks leading up to my 2^nd year Blogging Anniversary (a personal achievement, something to be celebrated, for someone who has never quite gotten over her fear over HTML), I was rootling around my Archives.

After looking through my old posts, I had only one conclusion: Jennyspeaks was f**king awesome. (This may not be a very reliable assessment considering that I am Jennyspeaks.)

But the point is. This blog has seen me evolve from a bipolar crow on amphetamines to a cynical depressive to a ??? now. In its posts I have confided terrible secrets and morbid emotions that I never had the courage to tell anyone about (including God). In typical no-holds barred fashion I have rattled off about everything from constipation to Amy Winehouse. I always prided myself as being a private person, but it is really ironic how this public space made me open up. These archives have now become precious and dear to me, because every single word I’ve uttered reminds me of what I was, and how far I’ve come.

And the thing that kept me going even on my lowest of days was the comments I received. Some of them made sense, some of them didn’t. But they all mattered anyway. It was affirming to get a comment from someone I didn’t know, because it reminded me that somewhere out there in our disconnected world, someone was listening to what I had to say.

Two years ago, I promised that I would continue the “answer key” as to who Jennyspeaks really was. I think it’s high time that I confront that question again.

Question: Who is Jennyspeaks?

Answer:

Jennyspeaks used to be a complex girl with complex wants and needs. Today she is still (if not more) complex, but has greatly simplified her wants and needs. Her bisexual tendencies have remained largely dormant since and she is happy about that.

She is still Eurasian and her parentage has not been altered. However while she used to not give a shit about her heritage, she now has a mild cultural/identity crisis.

Jennyspeaks’ faith in her maker has definitely become stronger since.

She has completely forgotten how to play the bass and the guitar, thanks to years of nerd-dom. She has not strummed a guitar ever since a steel string burst in her face while attempting to tune it. She is not in any musical group but has quietly penned several tunes since, on a voice recorder.

She believes that she isn’t racist. She hasn’t had a situation so far where she can test that belief.

She continues to hang out at the same old pigsty of an apartment block called her home. And it’s still cool.

Jennyspeaks has ceased having unhealthy obsessions over Green Day, much less any rock band. She just enjoys music and has a few favourites. Such as Green Day.

Jennyspeaks no longer aspires rock-stardom. In other words, she has become sensible and boring. Her sensible and boring career options journalism and broadcast media. She still hopes to brush up on her musical skills so that she can play music as a hobby. But secretly she hopes to be a writer.

(You are probably aware by now that this is a nerd speaking).

Jennyspeaks has reached the stage where she accepts that she cannot have a Gisele Bundchen figure and so she has stopped bothering about diets and calorie counting. She tries to exercise and maintain a figure that does not revolt people. She is content to be small, bite-sized and on the fleshy side.

She would still play catching, hide-and-seek and Old Maid… if only there was anyone who’d be willing to play with her.

Don’t bother totalling up your marks to see if you passed or failed the question. This answer key doesn’t prove anything because there’s no way you can compress an individual into a set amount of words. What’s written here today might be obsolete tomorrow… Who knows?

You’re needed, so stick around.

Ever had the feeling that you were just horribly inadequate? That you were neglecting everything and everyone around you?

I did.

I felt like a lousy friend. When I met up with my best friend yesterday after aeons, I realised how much I underestimated the significance of our friendship. I thought that I would be able to get along just fine with my life even though we met up erratically.

But after all the disappointments I’ve faced so far, after putting my faith in people that didn’t put their faith in me, it was such a blessing to see my old girlfriend waiting for me at the bus interchange. As reliable as clockwork. As sincere and real as she always was. It was just like the old times as we shared the grievances we both faced in our new lives. Spending the day with her totally made my day. It also reminded me that when the world ditches you, someone would be there you lift you out of the gutters.

I felt like a lousy daughter too. I was spending less and less time with my mother. And I knew that I was all that she had left. It sort of pained me to see her waiting up for me all alone when I came home late. The moment I stepped into the door till the instant when my head hit the pillow, my mum would bombard me from all sides, asking me about my day, offering me a supermarket full of food to eat, relating the full news bulletin to me, etc. All her small talk just screamed of loneliness.

But after all the empty chairs and distant faces, the fake smiles and manipulation, the using and the discarding, it was such a blessing to return to my pigsty of a home, and see a familiar face waiting for me. Someone who was joined at the hip with me, whether the both of us liked it or not. In a way we were both in the same boat, me with my busy life and she with her quiet life. We both felt alone and clung to each other for reassurance.

What’s the present without the past? As I soon found out, I truly needed these two characters back in my present, and hopefully they’ll stick around for my future too. I’m sorry to have left them out of the script so far. Maybe that’s what was missing from it.