Time Of Your Life. Wednesday, Oct 28 2009

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*

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Home Improvement Madness. Saturday, Oct 10 2009

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!

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Full Circle Wednesday, Sep 16 2009

“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?

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Spending My Unemployed Afternoons Tuesday, Jan 27 2009

Before I was recently became the Working Class Hero, I was the Jobless Jenny. I was basically bumming around at home, where I can get everything free of charge, where I can strut confidently to the fridge and i know that there will be Cheddar Cheese and Ruffles chips inside, primed for consumption. Now you will surely wonder: “Hello? You’re a 16-year-old on vacation. Why not hang out with friends and keep yourself busy?” And I will answer you with: “Because it is difficult to ask my mother for $20 on every alternate day, now that I am an absolutely shameless freeloader who does absolutely nothing at home.”

Well I do my fair share of housework and cleaning, but my sense of self-worth and dignity doesn’t permit me to badger my poor old lady for money to squander outside. thus, limited to twice-weekly hangouts with friends, i had to use my constrained budget very carefully.

And thus, with ample free time on other drowsy weekdays, I embarked on my Jobless Jenny routine, housewife-style.

After some minor sweeping and folding of clothes in the morning, I would eat breakfast. If was lucky I’d remember to brush my teeth. then it was computer time till afternoon. and afternoons meant this woman:

Before this period of unemployment I didn’t give a damn about this woman, only that she resembled my nosy neighbour, and that she was hustled off to jail, ala Paris Hilton. And that she had tons of money. Now as I was confined to my sofa set I had no choice but to watch the Martha Stewart show. It wasn’t that bad. It was basically about this Martha woman demonstrating her abilities as a housewife, Martha putting rugs here and there, Martha putting flowers here and there, and Martha cooking this and that. Martha also invited some celebrities to her show (most I didn’t know who they were).  I’d like to thank her for making my lunches a little less dull: You see, I would be busy stuffing instant noodles into my mouth while watching Martha make some exotic pie, thus for a moment making me forget that I’d been eating the same noodles for the past few days.

after Martha left there was a slightly younger, less uptight version of  her called Rachel Ray who would take over the TV screen. And similarly Rachel would invite celebrities over to her show, and this time I felt a little less alienated, because alot of them were has-beens like Rosie O’Donnell whom I remembered clearly for her Flintstones role. And well well: She hasn’t lost shape. Here she is:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To my utter disgust, I was secretly enjoying these cooking/lifestyle shows about middle aged women lecturing middle aged women on how to be housewives. It is interesting to note that none of these shows gave any attention to exercise; it was all about cooking food and eating food and yakking. No wonder housewives are (mostly) round along the edges.

A last highlight to my Housewife existence, which incidentally rendered me rather braindead, were the antics of the contestants on The Price Is Right. I enjoyed watching these hysterical people scream, cry and flail their arms in ecstasy as their names were called. Just look at silly human emotion on display:

Veddy nice. But alas; I’ve recently found gainful employment and that means adieu to all these silly people. I shall miss my stint as a braindead housewife though.

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Travelling. Thursday, Jan 15 2009

Dear Fellow O-Level Graduands:

The dust has settled. the hoo-ha is over. we have each gotten what we’ve gotten, and hopefully your tears (of joy? disappointment?) have dried by now. If not, it’s high time that you grab some tissue to dry your tears, to set yourself straight again, because you’ve gotta purchase tickets for the next train out.

I know of some people who are happy with what they have, who know exactly where to go next, cos they’ve got their route all planned out. then there are some travellers stranded at the station, staring at the train schedules but not really reading them. they’re in a mess, they’ve got their unexpected results in one hand, and lots of confusion in the other. they’ve got lots of excess baggage filled with fear and anxiety too.

maybe you’re like one of those stranded travellers, stuck in transit. given, you need some time to think about which direction you’re headed. but days have passed and you’re still pacing back and forth the station. my dear friend, you have to move on. sooner or later, everyone would have boarded their chosen trains to go their own destinations. what about yourself? you’re going nowhere.

but you forget that you’re a traveller, just like me, just like the rest of us. we carry our own luggage, no one carries it for us. we buy our own tickets. at each stop along the way, we meet other travellers and we make friends. and at each stop too, we lose friends. they have to go their own destination, somewhere where we cannot follow. does that mean we run out of the train to be with them? no. we stay seated until we alight at our own destination, wherever that may be.

right now, all of us have just alighted at the crossroads, including myself. I was with my travelling companion for 4 years, Serena Kuang, and we were standing in front of the train schedule, jostling, deciding. Where should we go? It would be nice if I could be in the same train as her, but I knew that at the end of the day, I was alone. I was a traveller seeking my own home, and hers was at the opposite end of the constellation.

I took the risk. I went up to the ticket booth, uncertain and afraid, clutching my little bag of things. I bought a ticket to Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s Mass Communications Course. a quick check at the passenger list confirmed that Serena was not seated in the same train as me, nor was any one else I knew. Of course, I reacted with fear. Who wouldn’t? there I was, back to square one, stuck with a carriage full of strangers, some smelly and some sinister, rolling off together with them into unknown territory.

But that’s the way things are, my friends. some of us may still travel together. But inevitably, we’ll part ways. While on different trains, the journey may not always be smooth: we’ll lose our luggage, our seats will get snatched, we’ll get molested (gasp!), and there’ll always be an irritating passenger who plays his Mp3 at top volume. 

BUT.

We’ll see places we’ve never seen before. Out with the old, in with the new. We’ll make friends with travellers sitting around us and in no time, we’ll be playing strip poker. erm ok, maybe just poker. we’ll become older, but wiser, and life takes a new, uncertain, but exciting route.

I’m packing my bags now, waiting to board my train, and all I see are unfamiliar faces around me at the platform. I see Serena in the distance, walking off to hers, and I wave. I’m alone again, but I’m beginning to like it. I can smell it coming: A new adventure, full of crap and shitheads (as always), and even more problems than before. But also with what will be (i hope) the best moments of my life.

Adieu, my friends. I hope you’ve got your tickets, because I’ve gotten mine, and I heard that they are selling out quick. It’s time to dump your old boarding pass into your luggage and get a new one. Go ahead. Buy the ticket, hop on the ride. Life moves on.

Bon Voyage.

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Young Meat for Hire. Friday, Jan 2 2009

okay, that just sounds horribly inappropriate. but anyhow.

I’m a single, cash-strapped and pretty much desperate teenager looking for a job. any job. currently, i’m unemployed, unless you count freeloading off my parents as a valid occupation (i think it is).

however, freeloading is a nasty business, because your skin has to be really thick to be able to stretch out you hand (almost every day) and, ahem, ask for twenty bucks to spend. or squander, more like, considering the dire global economic landscape we’re in, blah blah blah. i’ve tried out this freeloading thing for about two months now, and day by day The Boss is slashing my salary by large amounts. why she hasn’t fired me, i don’t know, which makes me think that despite the poor working conditions and unfriendly employer-employee relations, The Boss is a kind soul after all.

But back to business. I’ve been trying high and low, going through the classifieds with a microscope, looking for some one to get me out of my situation. in this case, skills i’ve learnt in my freeloading experience come in handy, because i’ve become rather shameless in badgering friends for elusive recommendations and phone numbers.

“the wait is killing me.” Someone said that. Now i know! It’s amazing how every single  prospective employer chucks you aside with the words: “Give me your number, and I’ll call you back for an interview.” the minute i hear those words my heart plummets. right now, i’m (still) waiting for 5 employers to, err, “Call Me Back”. We all know what that means.

However, patience is a virtue. Please tell me it’s true! So I’ll keep looking and making phone calls. I’ll harrass people, I’ll convince people that I’m young, maybe not so attractive, definitely single, and more importantly WITH BOUNDLESS ENTHUSIASM TO SERVE OTHERS!! A PEOPLE PERSON AND A TEAM PLAYER!!! WILLING TO PUSHED AROUND, BUT WILL NEVER COMPLAIN!!!! READY, to PRODUCE RESULTS AND ACHIEVE DYNAMIC PERFORMANCE!!!!!!!!*

*Batteries not included.

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