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.

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.

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!

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.

:”(

Ever since my estrogen has been able to control my feelings, I’ve been playing with fire and getting burnt again and again. It brings me to the top of the world when the rush comes on, the heady feeling when a guy looks you in the eye. And you know that it’s more than just a look.

But I have fallen again and again for people who toy with my emotions, and then discard me. 

Like how I came to know about someone who has hooked up after hanging on to me for so long.

And how, upon reflection, I realise that it’s not the first time I’ve been so caught up in the moment that I forget there’s no ground beneath me at all.

Then the bubble bursts and I plummet and I pick myself up. Only to be swept away again by that smile, that touch, those words. Cycle repeats.

Heartbreak heartbreak heartbreak. There’s only so much I can take.

I guess this is where my cynicism comes in handy. Let me switch back to my asexual mode, take a step back, and laugh at the folly of hormone-induced “love”.

I’m just unlucky, I guess. Now where’s my tissue.

Writer’s block blues: To blog or not to blog?

My posts here are getting erratic and my last post was so measly. It’s not that I’ve got nothing to bitch about. Rather it’s been the opposite—so many things have been happening around me that I’m losing focus.

Thoughts, which were previously as clear as crystal to me, have become hazy ghosts that flit around briefly in my head before dissolving into my medulla. I know I’ve got something—or actually many things—to write about. But when I stare at the blank “New Post” screen it stares right back and the blinking cursor taunts me and I ask myself why I am even at WordPress in the first place.

So the question is: To blog or not to blog? Should I consciously sit down and force myself to come up with something? Or should I just treat my blog as somewhere I go to only when I feel like it?

Of course most people would argue that blogs are for penning your personal original material. So why bother forcing yourself? For a while, I did just that and I didn’t post for a few months. I felt as inarticulate as Jessica Simpson, for whenever I wanted to post, a few naïve and ugly sentences would come out.

But then a gnawing sense of heaviness grew within me and before I knew it, I kept going back to my blog and staring at it. Clicking through the stagnant pages, I felt that some part of me was withering.

Furthermore, people were leaving me messages asking me to update my blog. Friends wondered if I was having some sort of emotional withdrawal. I missed sharing my verbose essays, no matter how wordy/eccentric they were, with people who actually gave a damn and read my crap. And while people gave a damn and kept coming back, I didn’t give a damn and I left a gaping silence.

And so I think I do have a responsibility to update, and in a sense compel myself to write. I want to go back to the old days when I could bitch on and on about anything at all. I never want to be handicapped inarticulate again. So here I am, trying to fill the silence.

Travelling.

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.