tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66993857334802820812024-02-21T07:15:11.740+11:00a long personal essayMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.comBlogger99125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-60182171067556790242022-08-30T14:14:00.006+10:002022-08-30T14:26:13.520+10:00Reflections on a month in the countryside<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcWc3luQr-jzDsqmB_2KBb1YeYXTSdvXrCX-Z18UzyzbjYYsXKndc9WZ7KD_a7cpYDPU5EKd-5SPSCAU0JfNDzdD45DBv9m78Om8pC-UtxbZA4bs_i3kSYmyvsdcO2G9sFD4GvufYuj6hfDQeXyCgAr085sIATMwhc-CioqAY1G60JKpnWlvts/s1587/IMG_9368.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1587" data-original-width="1170" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcWc3luQr-jzDsqmB_2KBb1YeYXTSdvXrCX-Z18UzyzbjYYsXKndc9WZ7KD_a7cpYDPU5EKd-5SPSCAU0JfNDzdD45DBv9m78Om8pC-UtxbZA4bs_i3kSYmyvsdcO2G9sFD4GvufYuj6hfDQeXyCgAr085sIATMwhc-CioqAY1G60JKpnWlvts/w295-h400/IMG_9368.jpg" width="295" /></a></div><p>I'd like to preface this by explaining that I was living with three productivity-prioritising boys, who recorded voice memos in order to collect 'anecdotes' come our interviews at the conclusion of medical school. The whole idea is calculated, inorganic, and also quite smart. I too attempted to record a voice memo while cruise-controlling my way through rural northern New South Wales, but unfortunately I speak in jumbles - not that my writing is much better, stream-of-consciousness and all - and the majority of the recording consists my commentary regarding a small yellow spider dangling from the rearview mirror.</p><p>Instead I am here, attempting to convey what it is I learned from a month-long placement in the countryside before the experience slips my mind entirely. Before I left I honestly thought I'd be writing a manifesto overlooking lush green fields and orange sunsets (trust that I'd romanticise a small town filled with cows and pubs). The picture was actually true to my imagination, except instead of manifesto-writing I was reciting flash cards. While the quiet repetitive nature of the place was subtly always present, I felt I was floating through this space over this time, unaware that anything was different. It's as if my life was put on pause and I have returned as if nothing happened. I can feel that I am different, but at the same time slot right back into my life before. This can be my version of a countryside-inspired piece, except with the overall intention of communicating medicine-related lessons to my future self in a digestible way.</p><p>***</p><p>I'll start by describing a few patients I found interesting. </p><p>Mrs. K was a 52 year old woman who had been in hospital for 92 days when we first encountered. She had two broken tibias, and was majorly depressed in COVID isolation at the time of my arrival. This woman was immobilised in bed for the entire four weeks I was in town, plus the 92 days before, plus however many days she might have to go - probably a lot. She had broken both bones following a fall, and was left lying on the floor for 24 hours by her husband and son before an ambulance was eventually contacted. Mrs. K was not considered a surgical candidate due to her many co-morbidities, and instead the dice was rolled to see if her bones would heal on their own. Spoiler alert, they weren't healing and this woman has been bed-bound for over 100 days now. I wondered what kind of solution this was, to condemn a woman to months - if not a whole life - in bed. Would physiotherapy ever be enough to solve the problem? Would she be better off if an orthopaedic surgeon took their chances? Would an orthopaedic surgeon ever bother to take a chance?</p><p>Although, surprisingly, as I came to talk to this woman day-in-day-out once she had overcome isolation, she seemed to be adjusting quite nicely. She had finished all 15 seasons of <i>Criminal Minds</i> and was joking with the staff. I wonder if humans truly can overcome and learn to love any situation if they have endured it for long enough.</p><p>Mr. R was admitted to the hospital from a nursing home due to aggressive behaviour. The man had a history of a traumatic brain injury, with half his frontal lobe excised, leaving a visible dent the size of a golf ball in his forehead. His aggression was the product of paranoia - a real fear that everybody was out to kidnap him. The frightened patient held a finger gun to the door, hands shaking, hair crazy like Einstein. His antipsychotics and antidepressants had to be crushed into his food. His referral letter from the nursing home read, "Mr. R has had four wives, wishing he could go back to the second," which I found only very random and endearing. As the days passed, Mr. R calmed down and could be seen sleeping peacefully or dopily eating his breakfast and whispering to his favourite nurse in a childlike manner. "Honestly, all this man needs is a single room," explained the nurse. "If you leave him alone and close the door he's perfectly happy. He's just scared of people coming and going in the nursing home and that's why he becomes aggressive." </p><p>Mr. B was a 92 year old man with a humeral head fracture and a sour mood. He really hated the hospital. Mr. B lived alone in a caravan and broke his arm by crashing his motor wheelchair into the side of the van, without his glasses on. Having explored these caravan parks and isolated beaches that stretched for miles, I could finally appreciate what people meant when they said they enjoyed camping. A friend I was hiking with marvelled at a woman serenely sitting in the back of her van, covered in Turkish blankets overlooking the ocean. I tried to picture Mr. B independently mobilising through the tiny amenities and long extension cords, and couldn't see that going well. </p><p>To be honest, the patient interactions on the north coast were not dissimilar to those I've observed in the city. Albeit, I have spent my last few placements in the West, where health literacy is much poorer and immigrants make the majority of the population. Differences in healthcare were due to the limited services available, with considerations made regarding the logistics of patient transfers to larger hospitals for specific procedures. </p><p>I was also told that the town had the second-highest population of Indigenous people in the state, and spoke with the Aboriginal-liaison officer who made two important points: 1) that a transfer to a different hospital is a much bigger deal to an Aboriginal person than to you or I, because they are travelling onto land that does not belong to their tribe, and 2) that family comes first. I recall a patient of ours who disappeared from the ward to go on a drive with her sister, missing an iron infusion. Any healthcare procedure or investigation was a commitment that went straight over her head, and if a family member wanted to hang out, she would waltz out of the hospital. As soon as she was told she could go home during ward rounds she left, before a discharge summary could even be written.</p><p>***</p><p>To comment on the doctors employed at the hospital, the consultants were overqualified immigrants attempting to re-climb the hierarchal ladder in a new country, and the single registrar and junior doctors were locum workers. </p><p>At the head of our team was a fellow who played the role of the consultant - an incredibly intelligent Pakistani woman who previously worked as an internal medicine consultant at a tertiary hospital. She treated each patient as a problem to solve, asking questions as if ticking blank boxes in a game of Cluedo, and concluding each consult with an answer narrated to the patient. Once the answer was an endearingly direct, "If you ask me, honestly, I don't know, but here are the possibilities..." Her method of teaching was to make up a scenario as if she were writing a long question for a math test. She was mechanical and graceful. This was the first time I had seen medicine performed so clearly and logically. </p><p>If anything, the male consultants paled in comparison, coming off as both less competent and more self-entitled. I watched as a male consultant became upset when his name was not present on the progress note, or argued with a nurse for interrupting him, or childishly yelled "WRONG" when I gave him an incorrect answer. He was not handling his demotion in this country with grace, but instead saw the unfairness as a direct insult to his manhood or something. And yet, he still asked for help in a small voice when called to a patient's family meeting, acknowledging the difficulty of explaining concepts of life and death when using a second language. Perhaps this was a reflection of male versus female roles in foreign countries, or perhaps men simply have bigger egos and less consideration than women in all countries.</p><p>The two junior doctors on our team were reflections of a role I would play in the near future. However, both were post-graduate medicine graduates who, as has been a recurring attitude of my superiors on previous placements, were somewhat put off by my flippancy toward this whole medical school ordeal. Of course I am not flippant, but neither have I prioritised my degree much until now. Medical school is just something I sort of do in the background of my life as a silly girl in her early twenties. The perspective I achieved from this is that undergraduate medicine thrusts children into an educational journey they are not ready to prioritise. 18 year olds simply could not care less about how the kidneys work. As these 18 year olds progress into 22 year olds they have won an easy ticket into being final phase medical students, having spent the last four years scraping through exams and partying and finding love interests and, most importantly, finding themselves. They never had to sit that big GAMSAT exam, or worry about their WAM, or make an executive decision about their career as they came out of one degree and willingly thrust themselves into another. I've been taking my learning much less seriously than these junior doctors had, and I'm behind. </p><p>The hospital itself was a textbook come to life, with bread and butter cases from all specialties of medicine. As the registrar grilled me regarding heart failure and elderly falls, the amalgamation of knowledge we call medicine became more cohesive and revealed the many gaps in my basic knowledge; and for the first time, I was actually excited to fill them. I wouldn't say my knowledge was destitute, but would instead admit that portraying your smartness to somebody is a gift in itself. My general flawed life philosophy has always been that the show doesn't matter. I'd never been one for aesthetics. I'd never understood the need for a clean room with nicely arranged furniture, or the romance of a candlelit dinner, or the purpose of nice-smelling perfume, or the problem with wearing pyjamas in public. In medicine, I never understood the need for jargon. I'd always thought big words were a mechanism of gatekeeping, and I may not be wrong. However, the one piece of feedback I have often received is that I must expand my vocabulary. I honestly think I am a little linguistically challenged, but the medical language is one I think I should learn.</p><p>On our last night in town, I made the boys watch <i>Clueless. </i>Their stream of commentary consisted complaints about Cher's stupidity - unable to see that she is endearing, and actually quite smart. Her intelligence is portrayed through pop culture and hot-girl anecdotes, rather than some elitist string of monologues. While I definitely think these boys are wrong, their perspective provided evidence that not everybody can see past the elitist or non-elitist surface. Sometimes the show means everything.</p><p>***</p><p>Living with these boys day by day taught me that planning is an advantage. I've always naturally been a planner, as most medical students are, but throughout the last few years have suppressed this urge in favour of the romance and chaos of spontaneity. Deep down, I am also aware that the suppression of calculated moves comes from a fear of an unexpected outcome despite meticulous planning. I am afraid of failure and disappointment in a way my naive younger self never was. Watching these boys sincerely try their best and blatantly move the pieces in their favour, I realised that I can do the same. </p><p>***</p><p>The countryside was really more of the muchness of muchness of life. They all said it was a 'city-girl goes to the country' situation, but I never really saw it that way. </p><p>Love,<br />M</p>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-7713778306797306612022-06-11T11:05:00.007+10:002023-07-01T18:13:56.071+10:00From the shoe store<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq8Lwp6q0VjFgWfFq0Z4nhqv3PfZM1bFwj-hoj7-8SwqxU7ku4vJUxm98Iy2I-RMIl4uBO0Z9ZFYtMvy-AZk5AbiN-WBkESoKDaon9x5PDBfeT0HvUFOtV8KJB9Bm5iLiHAxPIkc_-YbM153iAC-ii2elhUyOYJvta-eLeGF45BtU1janNwr8h/s468/6a4a5c732b8fdba07cbbf9db94b51c0c.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="296" data-original-width="468" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq8Lwp6q0VjFgWfFq0Z4nhqv3PfZM1bFwj-hoj7-8SwqxU7ku4vJUxm98Iy2I-RMIl4uBO0Z9ZFYtMvy-AZk5AbiN-WBkESoKDaon9x5PDBfeT0HvUFOtV8KJB9Bm5iLiHAxPIkc_-YbM153iAC-ii2elhUyOYJvta-eLeGF45BtU1janNwr8h/w400-h253/6a4a5c732b8fdba07cbbf9db94b51c0c.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Hello,<p></p><p>This is very much an e-diary entry from a sterile shoe store on the verge of closing down. A motionless A2 Emily Ratajkowski will be staring me down for the next 8 hours, I will probably buy an overpriced Poke bowl for lunch and feel like a boss bitch, and I am planning to take a highly professional self-timer photo for my CV behind this faux marble counter. Today was meant to be a (paid) administration day - full of catching up on flash cards and life administration. The constant flash cards and life administration.</p><p>Instead here I am, planning to write down my thoughts and goals for the moment. I guess that is a form of life administration in a way - to sit back and think about ways to improve. For the past few years, I've rendered self-improvement unnecessary. It's stressful and nothing matters anyway, right? You may as well have fun. It was either that or that in my perpetual state of go-go-go, I never had time to stop and think about self-improving; or perhaps the coronavirus sucked all motivation out of me, and many others. The monotony of ground-hog day can't have been productive for the evolving psyche. However, on the topic of nihilism, I should take a page out of Mark Manson's <i>The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck </i>*but giving a f*ck about the things you choose to matter*, or Evelyn Wang's optimistic approach from <i>Everything Everywhere All At Once</i>, and decide to make certain aspects of life important, to actually have some goals.</p><p>I wonder at what point I stopped thinking I was special, and whether this was a positive or negative change of mind. I wonder at what point I felt I was floating, devoid of personality, pushed around into whatever situation I happened upon, as my routines devolved month by month into a blur of inconsistency. I wonder when I started calling myself a "random girl" instead of just using my name. If my 16 year old self saw me now, she'd think it was all exciting. She'd think this was what <i>living </i>is - the disconnect, the randomness of the human condition. I don't think she'd understand that spreading yourself thin like marmalade on toast means that you do not know who you are. You are defined by nothing.</p><p>In the past few months I've been told by superiors and new friends that I am too impatient and hasty. I do before I think, and then I second-guess myself. I am full of second-guesses. In this world the multitude of choices is deafening. An undefined person is unsure whether they are doing everything wrong, while also assuming that everyone is in the same boat, doing everything wrong or right or averagely too. Observing the 20-something-year-olds around me, I feel we are all floundering and inconsistent. Even those who are certain, who think they know best, find themselves surprised the next day. It's anxiety-driving, and makes commitment to anything frightening.</p><p>So I guess if I were to make some definitive goals, that are really portions of one big goal, they would be to:</p><p>- Slow down and take things step by step. There's a process to everything.</p><p>- Be unafraid to commit to what I decide to do, and then do it properly.</p><p>- Be confident in who I think I am. I can always change my mind later.</p><p>- Think before I speak, and say things with more conviction. Vagueness is not attractive.</p><p>Love,<br />M</p><p><br /></p>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-38298738451560644562022-04-01T13:31:00.010+11:002023-07-01T18:15:35.305+10:00Do I, Like, Love Lena Dunham<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiacrkpGQeDBIY5JKp9YgYSvy_UbsWgYEXdhIRoJ9pXwGPuYhxQFHp-f1LofRmv9RQ_CHCHz0DRUQ32TGlLls68T9-H4GC3oUUqvqzsZSakvLust9hxEkUgnquTToBVzatkZiDZ7rgVJlDwieNKEg_-PAWoRM5o6SjToqyEOhhgWGFzXG8Fa_Fo/s564/7a5ef9b17aac4fcde022bb905b931018.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="564" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiacrkpGQeDBIY5JKp9YgYSvy_UbsWgYEXdhIRoJ9pXwGPuYhxQFHp-f1LofRmv9RQ_CHCHz0DRUQ32TGlLls68T9-H4GC3oUUqvqzsZSakvLust9hxEkUgnquTToBVzatkZiDZ7rgVJlDwieNKEg_-PAWoRM5o6SjToqyEOhhgWGFzXG8Fa_Fo/w400-h300/7a5ef9b17aac4fcde022bb905b931018.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div>Yesterday, while I was making lasagna, I felt this overwhelming gratitude for the fact that I'm a 20 something year old girl living her fun free life. Just before bed I walked past my roommate's room and she was blaring party music and doing her makeup like she was going to a rave or something, and she turned to me and said, "omg I just love doing my makeup alone when I'm drunk." This was following a potluck dinner with a bunch of girls I'd describe as 'fun and hot', with red wine and garlic bread, in this large house we made and call our own.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've been watching a lot of <i>Girls</i> lately, which Binge describes as '4 girls in their early 20's figuring out life in New York' or something like that. Following the theme of personal essayists, the show is definitely a mirror of Lena Dunham's life as she saw it. I mean, in the first episode the protagonist, Hannah, asks her parents "What if I'm the voice of my generation?" which interprets as both a sardonic and accurate representation of a girl who literally wrote a tv show about her own life. The show received a lot of criticism regarding its lack of diverse representation and the nepotism involved in getting picked up by HBO (they say she came to them with a general idea and half-baked script - so basically 'the worst pitch ever'). However, I do believe the show was created with the utmost earnest intentions, being that Lena, her narcissistic self, wanted to accurately represent her life as a white privileged 20-something year old because she believed it meant something.</div><div><br /></div><div>And to be honest, she did it well. The show won Golden Globes, the Peabody Award and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best New Series in 2013. Sure, nepotism and privilege can get you a certain distance, but at some point there needs to be some actual work put in, some actual merit. Besides, her parents are painters and sculptors who probably just gave her inspiration growing up in the New York art scene (romanticise that shit). It's not like they owned HBO or had anything to do with television whatsoever. As for the whole lack of diversity issue, like, I don't know about you but I don't want some privileged white Jewish girl writing from an Asian perspective. That would be weird and wrong in so many ways. I do understand that I probably like her work because I am a privileged girl in her 20's who is financially supported by her parents, and therefore very much resonate with shows about self-involved emotional women, but hey, here I am resonating. People need to stop being so goddam PC. Like, isn't the artist's goal at the end of the day to use their voice? Surely someone else can be hired to write about their marginalised experience. Although, that takes us back to the nepotism and privilege thing, and injustice is really not what I'm here to write about. Neither is Lena, clearly.</div><div><br /></div><div>A lot of people find Lena excessively annoying and problematic, probably because she is. Sometimes I don't enjoy watching Hannah strip in every public place ever or eat a bagel in a bathtub or whatever. I mean, it's cathartic on the same level as watching Phoebe Waller-Bridge masturbate to Obama's speech in <i>FleaBag</i>,<i> </i>but there's only so ratchet a girl can be before you're like CONTROL YOURSELF AND PUT SOME GODDAM CLOTHES ON. Lena Dunham is also known for saying stuff like, "I wish I had an abortion for the experience" or defending a co-worker and friend against rape allegations, but to be honest, I feel this all runs along the same white privileged girl theme of someone who is kind of self-involved and can't see past her own experience. As in, it's wrong, but it's all done in earnest, so I don't hate her for it. </div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps I both like and dislike Lena for her too-open honesty. I remember reading her book <i>Not That Kind of Girl</i> when I was 18, and within the first chapter she described losing her virginity to some guy and lying about being a virgin, and then like, dissociating out of her body. My young innocent self took the whole thing as a universal experience when clearly it's not. At that point I wondered, what was the point of writing that? Did you just feel like sending all these details into the void when nobody asked? It feels kind of graceless and narcissistic. Every single one of Lena Dunham's personal essays seem to revolve around boys and sex and marriage and hysterectomies. As a young woman, I really do eat that shit up because I wish more girls would write as openly and shamelessly as she does, but at the same time I get kind of annoyed that it's <i>literally </i>all she thinks about.</div><div><br /></div><div>While you'd think that a writer who obsesses over everything that makes up traditional female gender roles would make me spiral into a desperate mess of stressing over male validation, watching <i>Girls </i>has done quite the opposite. I guess this is what happens when a female writer focuses on a bunch of complex female characters. The male characters play supporting roles. They are simply tools for self-discovery, to figure out how to be loved, to love, and whether one needs to be loved at all. When discussing their distrust of their daughter and her seemingly terrible life decisions and coping mechanisms, Hannah's mother quips, "She does what she wants, has her fun, then goes home and writes in her diary and thinks about her fun." </div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Girls </i>shifts the focus to the trajectory of these girls' lives - the nitty gritty desire for validation and companionship. I think of Hannah oversharing to the man who's dumpster she wrongly uses to dump trash: "When I was young I decided that I wanted to experience <i>everything</i>, just so I could soak up all the experiences and tell everyone about it. But I'm so exhausted. I just want to be happy." There's scenes with one girl depressed in one room while the other is writing a novel across the hallway, doing well; with one girl crying in the bathtub while the other tells her to stop blowing her snot through the bubbles. It's messy, it's real, and it makes me love my girl friends.</div><div><br /></div><div>I think about our potluck where we pass pieces of lasagna and salad across the table, as somebody yells, "Who wants margaritas!" Two girls talk about their online dates this Saturday, about sitting in the jacuzzi and raising their body counts. Across the table, girls yell about mental illness, therapy, long-term relationships, boredom and past heartaches. I realise that we are never going to experience this again. We are never going to be this hot or intelligent or have this much room for chaos and unpredictability in our lives. </div><div><br /></div><div>Love,</div><div>M</div><div><br /></div><div>Ps. God, why do I feel like I wrote this in Shoshanna's voice? Sometimes I think I have Shoshanna's voice. F*ck she's so annoying though.</div><div><br /></div><div>Pps. This was literally me oversharing my opinion about something I kind of know nothing about, and then making it about me, which is honestly so Lena Dunham I can't.</div>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-35406379555098896862021-12-26T19:49:00.003+11:002021-12-26T19:49:25.936+11:00My Holiday Post: Resolutions, a Feminist Comment About Spiderman? lmao<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgKfdLtqgUPsNEvggnov6qDlAJccmGGgz_544Xulnz5a49XZ2gICzdCVXQT7Sopr2j1X8baRGlHKEnyqn3F8PJNeHI5AXVhEP3xRpOR-WyrzRlBOpsRjgdbwuZ-Y0ZvtNVMinog2upoJsDDaHpm4i6gejrl4tYDq77jDMFbYd0XxccV6whWmF0S=s4096" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3072" data-original-width="4096" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgKfdLtqgUPsNEvggnov6qDlAJccmGGgz_544Xulnz5a49XZ2gICzdCVXQT7Sopr2j1X8baRGlHKEnyqn3F8PJNeHI5AXVhEP3xRpOR-WyrzRlBOpsRjgdbwuZ-Y0ZvtNVMinog2upoJsDDaHpm4i6gejrl4tYDq77jDMFbYd0XxccV6whWmF0S=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><p>This is a homage to the annual New Years' blog posts of my teenage self. </p><p>Sitting on a couch in an airbnb, a friend of mine deliberated over whether she should start a blog. She meant so in a 2011 pre-tumblr era way, where people were more interested in long-form media than over-stimulating tiktoks or snappy Instagram captions or whatever. Like, people would literally ramble their weird opinions or pour their heart out in an essay or take really cringey fashion photo-shoot pictures and unsolicitedly tell you details about their family holiday in Hawaii. I miss those days. Honestly, I will read about your really boring week in the 11th grade at school with JOY. I told my friend that yes, I very occasionally do still post on this slightly deranged teenage blog, but it is never planned and almost always involves very shit un-edited writing. Her response was that blogs are <i>meant</i> to be this way. Here's the latest.</p><p>For the past few days I've been ridiculously sick, the only housemate remaining in this big white wooden five-bedroom of ours. I've been dawdling from my bedroom with the KFC bag full of tissues and the fan on full force, to the lounge room couch which I never use when my housemates are around, to the kitchen where constant rounds of honey lemon water are being concocted. Yes, I spent the entirety of Christmas day slipping in and out of a feverish sleep - watching wholesome Instagram stories filled with perfectly set tables and not wishing to be there one bit. It could be because I was just so goddam sick, but it could also be that for once I was resting and completely present. Time was non-existent.</p><p>My teenage self was such a sucker for making New Years' resolutions. I've always been obsessed with making continuous. progress. and like, reflecting on everything I've learned in a year. I'd ask myself questions like: In what ways have you changed since this time last year? Yuck. While my intentions were good, and very self-help-book-esque if I may say so myself, this year is different. For once I feel as if so much "progress" has been made that it speaks for itself, and what I wish for in 2022 is arbitrary, unknown... It's not like I can plan it anyway. Whatever happens happens (is that what depressed people say?, or just enlightened ones).</p><p>***</p><p>Anyway, moving on to some commentary regarding Spiderman: theoretically, if I were a legit writer, I would only give my opinions <i>after</i> watching all movies - and I really have watched all movies over like I don't know the last 15 years (minus <i>No Way Home</i> which just came out) but obviously, as with every Marvel movie ever, I remember nothing.</p><p>Over several watching-sessions interspersed with more feverish sleep today, I got through the first Toby Maguire movie: <i>Spiderman (2002). </i>That's the one where Kirsten Dunst dyes her hair red and dates every boy on the show ever before finally settling on Spiderman and has basically no personality other than being the classic "girl next door". Let's be real though, Kirsten Dunst was the ultimate symbol of the girl next door in the early 2000's. There's something about her dimples and unphased positivity and the fact that she's endearingly ditzy. Take Torrance from <i>Bring it On</i> for example, or Kelly from <i>Get Over It.</i> She literally never has any idea of what's going on and the main guy is always in love with her. One thing I noticed from the Toby Maguire movies is that Kirsten Dunst is <i>always </i>in trouble. She does nothing but play the damsel in distress over and over again. Like, I don't know how many times we can watch Peter Parker save MJ from falling off some building last minute, and why won't she stop screaming for like one second?</p><p>Moving on to the Andrew Garfield movies (side note, but why does Tiktok suddenly think I'm super into Andrew Garfield. I have <i>never </i>expressed any interest in this man and do not understand why I am being succumbed to watching thirsty edits of <i>The Social Network</i>, but anyway): I literally do not remember anything about the Andrew Garfield Spiderman movies because they were really shit. They were so shit that Marvel scrapped them before they were even done. However, from what I remember of Emma Stone, which may or may not be based off my opinion of the actress rather than the character Gwen Stacy, the girl is smart and quirky. I also don't necessarily think we should disregard the casting of Emma Stone, because the choice of actress does say a lot about the direction they wanted this character to go in. While Emma Stone has a varied repertoire of movies - literally, she's in <i>The</i> <i>Favourite </i>which is just a weird f*cking movie - even in rom coms such as <i>Easy A </i>or <i>La La Land</i>, she never plays a stereo-type. She is always distinctly Emma Stone.</p><p>And finally we have Zendaya as MJ alongside Tom Holland. The first thing I noticed about the Tom Holland Spiderman movies was that the characters in the high school actually looked like teenagers. They were all short and wearing braces and sort of unattractive. I loved it. Anyway, at this point I think we're past describing whether MJ plays a stereo-type or is a damsel in distress. See, look how much movies have changed since 2002. You guys....</p><p>The main thing I'd like to take from the most recent Spiderman movies is that Zendaya and Tom Holland are dating IRL... and everyone supports it! even though she's taller than him! I'm gasping. This shows that at the end of the day, people really do prioritise love over appearances. You know what? Maybe this post is actually just a shocking revelation of how vain I can be, or how the vanity is attempting to leave my system? Or just a post to say that at the end of the day, we support short kings <3</p><p>Love,<br />M</p>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-84906408909490154202021-12-01T00:14:00.005+11:002021-12-01T01:43:37.926+11:00Charli XCX among other things<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4sB0k8CrIAe6Mt3POqLlhDCUJZelh2VZ7noWYb1drgJXffUqSjTacxB40-pl5c0hsEcocZVRHeZVmRqgq3J3li2AxSrxwmQ68A5I-HQuKddWqTLmuT0K-QE8v9c7lqlH6iHF35tVAYA/s600/Pop+2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4sB0k8CrIAe6Mt3POqLlhDCUJZelh2VZ7noWYb1drgJXffUqSjTacxB40-pl5c0hsEcocZVRHeZVmRqgq3J3li2AxSrxwmQ68A5I-HQuKddWqTLmuT0K-QE8v9c7lqlH6iHF35tVAYA/w400-h400/Pop+2.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>I was having dinner with a friend from high school who's been staying with her boyfriend and his roommates, and she was like, "I've noticed you've been listening to a lot of Charli XCX. My boyfriend's roommates love Charli XCX and I just don't understand!" Of course, as a result, her boyfriend and his roommates have ascended in my mind from mere people-I-don't-know to people-I-don't-know-but-respect. I spent a portion of time explaining to her the appeal of Charli XCX, although it turns out my reasons for loving her are much less intellectual than her boyfriend's roommates'. They love Charli because her music production is beyond good, because she's the queen of hyper pop... etcetera etcetera... you know, stuff that arty people would say. My explanation for loving Charli is that she is simply a bad bitch, but sad; she makes interesting noises that nobody else does, which was exactly what I needed in the throes of lockdown boredom. She was there for me.</p><p>Anyway, as per usual we also discussed starting a podcast, which is something every single one of my incredibly interesting and intelligent girl friends will bring up on any given day, and this time I was like yeah, I literally feel motivated to buy a microphone and recording equipment and start dishing out my opinions right! now! However, why would I do that when I have a perfectly established blog that I never update and nobody reads? I've also been meaning to write in my diary for like days now. The opening of the entry was going to be "Hiii just thought I'd check in" but I haven't had any damn time and honestly can't be assed. Instead I'm here.</p><p>*It looks like this is going to be a self-aware stream of writing. My incredibly scientific thesis also seems to have been written as a self-aware stream of consciousness, but I'm not going to lie, it kind of works.*</p><p>Now, back to my seemingly throwaway claim that Charli XCX is a bad bitch, but sad: Charli XCX is not one of those celebrities in the media who we can hyper-analyse like Kim Kardashian, nor is she a literal lyricist like Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo or Lorde (Lorde is questionable. We're still unsure if <i>Melodrama</i> was about Jack Antonoff), but I am going to attempt to make conclusions about her character through her music anyway. </p><p>The first thing I think we've all noticed is that Charli is kind of a bad girl. Well, not bad per se, but adventurous, chaotic, inherently restless. Take <i>Break The Rules</i> for example, or <i>No Angel</i>. She literally opens with the lyrics "Always been a little fast and wild / and mama always said I was a problem child." Then there's <i>5 in the Morning</i> where she basically sings about partying until 5am while some dude tries to keep up (but probably can't lol). In fact, take a look at her music in general. Every album gives us a different sound, not only compared to each other but also compared to like everyone else in the music industry. </p><p>So yeah, she's a creative baddie. We get it. But alas, with every restless girl comes a little bit of self hate.</p><p>You know how there's that dumb Instagram trend going around where everyone's posting the urban dictionary definition of their name? Well, my group chat decided to send our definitions there, and of course everybody got favourable definitions - hot, smart, kind, cute, the best friend, so lucky to call them yours etc. Meanwhile, I got "will perpetually try to ruin her own life," which everyone found fitting in a funny way. Normally I'd find something like that funny too.</p><p>Honestly, Charli would probably find something like that funny. I mean, she wrote a song called <i>Vroom Vroom, </i>which is literally about driving a fast car so "these sluts no they can't catch me VROOM VROOM"; and <i>Porsche, </i>which is about dreaming about a Porsche; and that song with 100gecs where she's like "my boy's got his own ringtone" for the whole song. Clearly she's a silly girl.</p><p>However, this time round I was super triggered. I was like ohhhmygod am I always ruining my own life??? You see, most people in this world, they try their best. By a person who tries their best I mean someone who pats dogs for their mental wellbeing, and someone who genuinely tries to talk to people about the things they like and the things they're studying and the things they're proud of, and someone who receives nice urban dictionary definitions and all their friends are like awwww that fits you so well, and someone who says what they mean, basically. I, unfortunately, have come to the realisation that I have never been this person. I seem to veer towards the tumultuous route, the one that I think is funny and emotionally stimulating, but overall like three thousand times more difficult than if I just, I don't know, tried my best at life.</p><p>Charli, I feel, is the same. Not all her songs are silly even though she likes to give us ironic silly skinny hot girl vibes. Even some of the silly ones have a bit of a serious undertone. Take <i>Porsche </i>for example. She definitely says that she's been dreaming of a Porsche to get some guy out of her head. I listen to one of my all time favourites <i>White Mercedes,</i> where she sings "I hate the silence / that's why the music's always loud"; and <i>Gone </i>where she's like lol I hate everyone here and being perceived. I'm leaving; and <i>Track 10</i> which is the best song to dance to even though the only lyrics are her yelling "I BLAME IT ON YOUR LOVE / EVERY TIME I FUCK IT UP"; and there's that video I once watched where she says that she wishes she wrote <i>i like america and america likes me</i> by the 1975, and the only lyrics I remember from that song are "I'm scared of dying" and "being young in the city" amongst a dreamy electric backtrack.</p><p>Then there's her recent release <i>Good Ones, </i>where she basically sings about how she lets every good guy in her life go. This echos back to <i>White Mercedes</i> where the entire premise of the song is about how she's a white Mercedes, uncatchable, running too fast, not deserving of some guy. I didn't mean for this to be an analysis of Charli XCX's relationship with boys, but the girl clearly knows how to love. First of all there's <i>Boys </i>where we all feel the fun excitement of aha boys, but then there's <i>Official </i>where she sings in her hyper pop out of tune voice about all the best parts of being close to someone - the little things like being in the kitchen, or laying in bed late at night; and <i>ILY2 </i>where she's like wow it's so weird saying I love you, never thought about it. Side note but she also totally understands sex, or rather, being desired. Take <i>White Roses, party 4 u </i>and <i>Emotional </i>for example. </p><p>Charli also writes a different kind of break up song. Take <i>So Over You</i>, where she screams "I'M SO OVER YOU / TELL ME BABY ARE YOU OVER ME" which is so effing cathartic; and <i>Cross You Out </i>where there's a heavy bass and she's all like lol when you're not around I cross you out and I'm sooo much better; and a whole lot of songs referencing tears - "century of tears / sadness was my only smile" and the song <i>Tears </i>which is literally about her tears<i> -</i> because understandably there's a lot of crying involved; but then she comes out with songs like <i>Forever </i>where she's like byeeeee let's never talk again but I'll remember you forever.</p><p>Anyway, sorry for this poorly written midnight spiel but my conclusion is that Charli XCX is a bad bitch, but sad, because her music is literally so funny and cathartic and different, yet also relatable in a chaotic emo girl way. Does that make sense?</p><p>Goodnight.</p><p>Love,<br />M</p>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-89862426782793615692021-09-08T14:43:00.014+10:002021-09-28T17:39:48.033+10:00Imaginings of Quarantine Letters, or Rather Essays, Monologues?<p>As I read more of David Foster Wallace's <i>Infinite Jest </i>and 1993 essay <i>E Unibus Pluram: Television and US Fiction</i>, I feel as if I am morphing into a white man. His characters are troubled skinny white boys who smoke copious amounts of marijuana and have existential crises concerning their erudite brilliance. Of course the tennis academy's skinny white drug dealer reads books entitled <i>Cambridge Refractory Indices of the Camera Lens, 4th Edition</i> or something along those lines; and the skinny white author self-insert has an interest in Byzantine erotica; and the not-so-skinny white older brother regards women as inconvenient objects, pieces of furniture to serve his character; and of course they all have issues with fatherly disappointment and social anxiety and glory. White boy problems. </p><p>I, personally, would love to be concerned with my own brilliance if I could bring myself to give an unhealthy shit. At times I do feel discernment, or rather pride, towards my own wit that can translate to dry humour that can translate to the complex <i>funniness</i> of my entire being. I have taken on the priorities of an overthinking white boy who simultaneously watches the Kardashians and 'that girl' videos on YouTube. </p><p>In my admiration of Wallace's writing, I have become inspired to expand my vocabulary. Nobody does the internal monologue better than Wallace - with his essay-like structure backed up by nil evidence and a paragraph finale of a colloquial, jesting sentence that is inappropriately out of place.</p><p>A word: </p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>solipsism (n) - the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist</i></p><p style="text-align: left;">If this does not scream overthinking white male, I don't know what does. The word also accurately encapsulates the experience that is quarantine, social isolation, solitude. No mind seems to exist outside the entity that is my own anymore. She is whirring of her own accord, desolate, uninfluenced, going rampage.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Another:</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><i>dilettante (n) - a person who cultivates an area of interest without real commitment or knowledge</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;">Synonyms include dabbler, dallier, myself in each new phase of quarantine</p><p style="text-align: left;">As I read Wallace's outdated essay regarding the US population's addiction to television, as I read the fact: <i>The average American watches television for 6 hours a day</i> over and over again because he writes the phrase incessantly, I feel guilt toward my own perpetual media consumption here indoors. However, to Wallace I must say, I would love nothing more than to be living my very real exciting life if I were allowed to live it. My dear dead brilliant friend, you could not have predicted this global pandemic. You also could not have predicted the predicament that is social media as it is today - inclusive of all its addiction, anxiety and vanity - though you came close, and your imagining of the way such an invention would affect people was almost spot-on, and you would be frightened if you saw society today; but that is a whole essay in itself.</p><p style="text-align: left;">***</p><p style="text-align: left;">Working on my thesis is so mind-numbingly boring that I must blast music to get through the transferring of references from this side of EndNote to that. In 2021 there has been the release of Kanye's <i>Donda</i> (very thinks-he's-brilliant-esque, but I do love music with a God complex), Halsey's <i>If I Can't Have Love I Want Power</i> (I think the title says it all), Lorde's <i>Solar Power </i>(very disappointing), Drake's <i>Certified Lover Boy</i> (eh, it's just Drake), and the soundtrack of Shang-Chi (so underrated). My personal favourite noises, however, have been the blasting of Charli XCX and Grimes, and my latest playlist consisting of angsty 2000's teenage music. I kind of wish I were a teenager in the 2000's - like Julia Stiles driving her car to <i>Bad Reputation</i><i> </i>or Cher giving Tai a makeover to <i>I Wanna Be a Supermodel. </i>I think you can tell what mood I'm in.</p><p style="text-align: left;">One day as I was perusing through Spotify, I noticed three boys I had previously hooked up with all listening to the same song at the very top of the activity bar. Okay, they weren't actually listening to the same song, but this is my analogy for the fact that I came to the realisation that they all have similar music taste. Perhaps I have a type. As I had a quick scope of each of their playlists I came to the conclusion that their tastes seem to chronologically improve.</p><p style="text-align: left;">We begin with the first boy, who listened to an abundance of Tyler The Creator. He was symbolic of the aforementioned skinny white boy - the one who does drugs and ruminates on his white boy problems. The second had neatly organised playlists, more relaxed, more endearingly revealing; only slightly cringe but still respectable, admirable even. And the third had playlists thirty hours long. Who has playlists thirty hours long? They were playlists of a variety of genres, playlists of somebody who clearly loves sound, playlists of somebody who I now recall asking me, "do you ever just empty your mind, and like, think of nothing?" God, his Spotify almost makes me wish I weren't so horrendously depressed when I met him. </p><p style="text-align: left;">I'd have loved to turn my telling of these boys' Spotifies into a David Foster Wallace-esque commentary on pop culture, but alas, I cannot make fun of them (and myself). It feels too disrespectful. Perhaps there was no interesting story here to begin with either.</p><p style="text-align: left;">***</p><p style="text-align: left;">Spring commenced with bike rides with my father. Canberra truly is the city of lakes, cycling and hiking. I recall a high school friend of mine once describing Canberra as a valley between mountains, with seven peaks from which you can see the whole city. I'm not sure if that number is correct. I recall her driving us up to secluded lookouts with views in the middle of the night overlooking the speckling lit city after a party or post-KrispyKreme runs; or on a scorching languid summer's day, where we would sit and gossip about irrelevant people and things.</p><p style="text-align: left;">There are differences between riding back then and riding now. The hills surrounding the lake used to feel insurmountable, but I can now ride the kilometres without even changing gear. I guess that's what happens when your legs are a little bit longer, when you're a little bit stronger. While I used to ride in front of my sister, I must now ride behind because I cannot help but slam the brakes when encountering a downward slope or remotely sharp turning. I guess that at some point over the years I must have developed fear.</p><p style="text-align: left;">We rode past that red slide that used to seem so gigantic, but now appears rather quaint. We rode past the bench at the top of the hill where I used to always complain of thirst, but now instead look over the lake at the tower while taking an appreciative breath of fresh air, Eat Pray Love style. Being Spring, it is swooping season, and there is a single stretch of road in the suburb called Ainslie guarded by one menacing magpie. Head down, unthreatening, fearful but quick, you must cycle through the dangerous stretch. I feel bad for refusing every cycling trip with my dad throughout my teenage years. </p><p style="text-align: left;">Love,<br />M</p>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-74069117356433934512021-08-19T22:06:00.013+10:002021-08-19T22:41:10.135+10:00Paris Hilton and David Foster Wallace<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRuj9EnFEjJ99onM0V992CDhneMZeVfEfAwdfVaZ1VvXTpzuCjMqkiFOnj7SFufPs6QxsENcfCX8W-vr4RP7FR-Au7V_7zfsWYgaWYDwPVP2J6U6CRJGnAYt5CcnLflS5TJN6WXPic2w/s501/e21f98e1aba033913699943a3b3932e8.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="501" data-original-width="413" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRuj9EnFEjJ99onM0V992CDhneMZeVfEfAwdfVaZ1VvXTpzuCjMqkiFOnj7SFufPs6QxsENcfCX8W-vr4RP7FR-Au7V_7zfsWYgaWYDwPVP2J6U6CRJGnAYt5CcnLflS5TJN6WXPic2w/w330-h400/e21f98e1aba033913699943a3b3932e8.jpeg" width="330" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>My book club is reading <i>Infinite Jest </i>at the moment, where-in-which at our last meeting I characteristically had not read the allocated pages and sat nodding dumbly as I stared at my reflection in the Facetime camera (I looked cute that day). A girl commented that the book made her wish she could write, to which I thought to myself, perhaps I should actually read said book instead of mindlessly skimming pages of Wallace's psychobabble. To be honest, it is psychobabble. <i>Infinite Jest </i>reads like the monologue of a ridiculously intelligent, spiralling man who took the time to sit down and write the most epic, inner-voice-replicating autobiography slash character study slash society study that he could. He wrote the world as he knew it into a book, with fun footnotes and all. His voice is satirical and ironic, yet somehow you know he means every word he's written - in all its absurdity. It all probably really happened to him. He seems narcissistic enough that he'd write specifics as they happened to him. Real life is absurd like that, after all.</p><p>I cannot think of any way to describe the book besides... reflective of the modern condition, as cliche as that sounds. The author has a cyclone mind. He makes me think of that character from Sally Rooney's <i>Conversations with Friends</i> - another one of her silly elitist female Irish characters who is probably pale and drinks tea while staring at the ocean - or are the ocean-watchers Scottish? Anyway, her name is Frances, and she narrates, "I fantasised that I was smarter than all the teachers, smarter than any other student who had been in the school before... I'm going to be so smart that nobody understands me." Wallace's cyclone brain is whirring within his skull as his expression remains placid. I doubt his words came out in real life as they do on the page. I mean, he introduces the novel with silent words and a seizure in the middle of a college-admissions interview. As a friend messaged me, in anxiety-inducing social situations she is like :|. A realisation I've been coming to recently is that respect must be earned, and minds cannot be read. </p><p>Last night I painted my toenails, with little pink toe separators and all, while watching Paris Hilton open her glittering notebook filled with recipes written in colourful texta. "This is so you," Kim Kardashian-West chuckles. "I swear travelling with Paris is just... do you remember? You'd bring all these stickers and we'd sit on the plane and all we'd do is collage for the entire trip." As absurd as the specifics of Wallace's characters (or should I say, Wallace himself) are, the specifics of Paris are both endearing and filled with personality - from her stiletto shaped spatulas to her pet pig, Princess Pigalette. Paris has never tried too hard to demand respect from the public. Instead she's always milked the blonde bimbo persona. She built an empire out of not caring and being dumb.</p><p>Paris has a barbie voice on <i>Cooking With Paris</i>, with her on-brand quotes lighting the screen: "Couture in the kitchen means dry cleaning bills." You get the gist. Yet occasionally her guest of honour will share a serious detail about themselves, and her voice will slip into normalcy - not just normalcy, but the deep intelligent voice of an introspective girl friend and the founder of an empire. On <i>The Simple Life</i> (2003-2007), Paris is relatively conservative compared to her more brazen co-star, Nicole; and on her podcast <i>This is Paris</i>, her opinions are almost entirely neutral. Her only nuggets of wisdom are given as bedazzled anecdotes: "Be like that Chanel bag that nobody can touch. Don't be the fake on Canal Rd. that everybody can put their hands on." Paris doesn't offer us anything. The world floats around her: a seemingly simple-minded star who may or may not have a cyclone circling within. I mean, she doesn't strike me as easy-going (I have yet to watch her documentary).</p><p>To have a mind like Wallace but instead write it like Paris. That is how I'll conclude this Thursday night brain fart.</p><p>Disclaimer: We'll never really know about Paris. As @kardashian_kolloquium's theory goes, oversharing can be a form of defence. Make so much noise that the world doesn't know what's really going on.</p><p>Love,<br />M</p>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-54436364906281138432021-06-14T23:36:00.006+10:002021-06-15T00:10:53.373+10:00God Complex<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN6_1-Z_y4TJyPWLkogpIpnDpnSkShUXkGbtHghyphenhyphenmxHsdwU_WeQq3EwplQo4uJ1kC5ASxIgpkZXlM_NhRshQY139uthwk8hgtcu8CNitXb0Fmr8w4B7QVzJEo2jBSmwOEeVVV_eapLYw/s716/Screen+Shot+2021-06-14+at+11.35.27+pm.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="454" data-original-width="716" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN6_1-Z_y4TJyPWLkogpIpnDpnSkShUXkGbtHghyphenhyphenmxHsdwU_WeQq3EwplQo4uJ1kC5ASxIgpkZXlM_NhRshQY139uthwk8hgtcu8CNitXb0Fmr8w4B7QVzJEo2jBSmwOEeVVV_eapLYw/w400-h254/Screen+Shot+2021-06-14+at+11.35.27+pm.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>The boredom used to creep in ever so slowly. I'd strategically empty drying racks and take down washing lines in intervals, breaking up the never-ending idle hours. I'd decide that I would paint as if by numbers, or cook the most tedious dish, just to kill time. When did I become somebody who needed to kill time?</p><p>I now sit on the floor at 11pm with a charging cable too short to reach the desk, which is sprawled with unstudied mandarin characters anyway. The cable is too short because I bought an iPad, for sleek new notes and databases. I also cut my bangs, renewed my idolisation of Christina Yang, and decided I want to become an orthopaedic surgeon, for now.</p><p>I felt such detachment from this person I used to be. There was once a version of myself who had something to prove. Her identity was pure ambition, goals and independence, and she was known for it. Oh, to be rough around the edges, and bossy, and perceived as capable. Oh, to want to play the game, to be vindictive, to have glory. When did I stop wanting glory?</p><p>Competition is ugly, I said. To be competitive is to be desperate and ruthless. It's like a cat scratching its way up the side of a well, snarling and scraggly as it reaches over the top, accomplished against all odds.</p><p>In the car, I sat quietly in the back as a group of girls spoke about feeling imposter syndrome. The next morning, I whispered to a friend, "Do people actually feel that way?" Despite no sound evidence of my intelligence, and no approval from my seniors, and no effort on my behalf, I somehow have always assumed that I am impossibly capable of anything. It's called a God Complex.</p><p>Also, I listened to Lorde's new song and she sings <i>I'm kinda like a prettier Jesus</i>. I love her. She is like a prettier Jesus. The song has grown on me.</p><p>Love,<br />M</p>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-4900674777642337062021-05-20T14:38:00.006+10:002021-09-08T17:32:31.214+10:00The Tornado Calms for a Second<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgClTDuCjmTrejoimzAm7arjO9vUrx8sgnSX29dOHxl-eMCvulfYaunS_Uabi9PZ5bi-Wmw1_CP4X06oG7sek6JwA9NjiH3PBmOXmYM0L7CBW3eoxsRJ0DV_Q4IghsOTUFbTiKJrHaonQ/s2048/IMG_1090.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgClTDuCjmTrejoimzAm7arjO9vUrx8sgnSX29dOHxl-eMCvulfYaunS_Uabi9PZ5bi-Wmw1_CP4X06oG7sek6JwA9NjiH3PBmOXmYM0L7CBW3eoxsRJ0DV_Q4IghsOTUFbTiKJrHaonQ/w480-h640/IMG_1090.HEIC" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Or rather is calm in general. Or rather does not calm at all.</span></div><p>I attended an art exhibition yesterday; not one of those modern ones about the human condition and whatnot, which is usually my thing, but one of those with biblical depictions, European portraiture and Van Gogh's weirdly bright sunflowers. By weirdly bright, I mean positively glowing.</p><p>There were a few paintings that caught my eye: </p><p>A depiction of Genesis 24: A servant stands by the central well, tasked by Abraham to find a wife for his son, Isaac. He devises a test, awaiting a woman with the kindness to draw water for himself and his ten camels. That woman is Rebecca. </p><p>A blurred golden rendition from Homer's <i>The Odyssey</i>; the scene in which Ulysses escapes the island of the one-eyed monster. If I recall correctly from my bedtime stories, Ulysses introduces himself to the cyclops as Nobody, only to injure the cyclops' one eye. The cyclops then stumbles about, crying "Nobody hurt me. Nobody hurt me." This story used to make me laugh and laugh at the sheer simple ingenuity.</p><p>And a painting of Saint Margaret. Her expression is formidable. She knows her worth, her importance, her significance. She is dressed in traditional Spanish robes. Where she would traditionally be wearing a tiara, she is wearing a straw cowboy hat, a Spanish equivalent. And melding into the darkness of the background, at her feet, is Satan disguised as a menacing creature. He is snarling, and she is un-phased.</p><p>There is something eternally graceful about history. In these stories, the world seems bigger, time seems longer, and the present seems completely insignificant. I almost want to throw a splattering orange at the modern art in the middle of the foyer, or spill juice on the book I am reading. <i>Adults:</i> an obsession with Instagram, modern relationships and today's hustle culture. I read an article about the lonely pandemic. By this I don't mean the coronavirus pandemic that sent us into isolation (which was/is awful), but the pandemic that started in the last century, where-in-which we all seem to be paying for individuality, privacy and studio-apartments to live all alone. Modern culture is the bane of my existence. It is graceless, Facebook is stupid, and Tinder sucks. I feel as if I've done a 180 on my persona, or want to, anyway.</p><p>***</p><p>If we are to return to the whirling tornado, we are referring to uncontrollability. As my stupid, stupid book about the modern human condition writes, <i>we need the courage to control what can be controlled, and a therapist to work through what can't</i>. Perhaps this is how normalcy works: Complications will occur either way, but the harder you try to be normal, the closer to plan things will go. But I have never tried to be normal. In fact, I have always actively played in the other direction. I never realised that life would make that happen all on its own.</p><p>I listened to a podcast by a couple of acquaintances this morning, and they spoke about being irreplaceable. I love that idea: to be irreplaceable based on your experiences, your uniqueness, your hard work. I haven't felt that motivated in a while.</p><p>The tornado is exciting, if you let it be.</p><p>Love,<br />M</p>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-77036953486388717502021-04-13T14:11:00.011+10:002021-04-13T14:33:47.118+10:00Things I Want To Be<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjijEaj2ynIZfxoN8zZGmq5GDuy-FHf67RkXNEfIukVhrDY7lV9wvDvgSDyTahRkiVwE6ZA7nJCuyp_TwoqIbHZ8rIQ2KjlS_fMch_RmtNIM97rqQEBPFoJV-EzcT8U7WxRi8WRR8l_3g/s1276/Screen+Shot+2021-04-13+at+2.11.10+pm.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="706" data-original-width="1276" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjijEaj2ynIZfxoN8zZGmq5GDuy-FHf67RkXNEfIukVhrDY7lV9wvDvgSDyTahRkiVwE6ZA7nJCuyp_TwoqIbHZ8rIQ2KjlS_fMch_RmtNIM97rqQEBPFoJV-EzcT8U7WxRi8WRR8l_3g/w400-h221/Screen+Shot+2021-04-13+at+2.11.10+pm.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>I read an article about personal branding this morning. The gist of the article followed the idea that capitalism is the worst! and we shouldn't try to monetise our personalities. That's irrelevant though. I took this whole personal branding concept as a challenge for self-improvement. I'd like to think that how I am perceived is irrelevant, but at the same time, often people can be see-through. Well, often <i>I</i> can be see-through; and when you're see-through, how you are perceived rings some truth regarding who you are. Hence, working on perception is adjuvant to working on myself, etcetera etcetera. </p><p>I'm at home at the moment and it's freezing and I don't like myself. I'm seated in the same spot where I would pore over Margaret Zhang's blog throughout high school. On a side note, she has now become the editor in chief of Vogue China - the youngest editor in chief of Vogue ever (of course she has). Her blog entries always rang personal yet private; emotional yet classy. Amongst an impossibly aesthetic collage of images, she could somehow write truthfully, and deeply, about her career and the social issues she cared about. Yet, she never revealed a piece of her personality. To have something to share yet be private is something I have always envied. How does one draw the line between being passionate and being too personal?</p><p>Everything is relatively empty though. With an idle year staring me in the face, there is not much food for thought beyond the personal. Two days ago I sat on the bus with a boy who had an impossible amount of hobbies. He described hiking, and fishing, and fixing his motorbike - which all seemed like incredibly boyish things to do - yet he seemed grounded just by keeping busy. Speaking to a boy my age with different priorities to myself and those around me felt like a breath of fresh air. He asked me if I had any hobbies, to which I asked for suggestions. </p><p>A high school friend patted me on the shoulder and asked me what happened. I used to be the queen of hobbies and personal projects, she said. She's right.</p><p>My immediate thought when thinking about new ways to fill my time was of a colleague of mine who has been posting videos of herself figure skating. She spins, and she falls, then spins, and falls. It's all such a pretty work in progress. Rather than finding bouts of inspiration, I instead envisioned myself in the act of working on something - glasses on, using my brain like I haven't in years; or physically exerting myself with glowing skin; or playing a sweet-sounding instrument with the discipline of a small Asian girl. Visualising the aesthetics of a project rather than actually doing it is rather shallow, but at least it's a start. As I said, working on perception is adjuvant to working on myself, etcetera etcetera.</p><p>The one personal project I do come back to time and time again is writing things down. While diary-keeping has been a constant - the teary non-sensical entries don't quite make for anything productive. I want to sound pretty like Margaret Zhang. However, at a party three days ago, I recall speaking to a girl who writes impersonal pieces for Vogue. Completely tipsy, I blurted out the name Tavi Gevinson. I remember the way her eyes lit up either due to nostalgia or some deep emotional connection with Tavi's work. The personal essays of Rookie Magazine meant something to us. They weren't necessarily pretty or deep. They were conversational, relatable and rife with emotion. </p><p>By the end of this party, the girl looked me in the face to see that my eyes were puffy from crying in public. I think I have always wanted to be seen as someone hard and untouchable, so the shame from showing so much emotion eats away inside of me. However, have I not been showing too much emotion this whole time, my whole life? I am a see-through person, after all. I am beginning to wonder whether I could deal with my emotions on the inside without disclosing how I feel too quickly and too soon. My mother always told me that I don't owe anybody an explanation. Yet, friends also tell me to not change the way I am. Perhaps showing emotion displays vulnerability and brings people closer together.</p><p>My mother brought back the same thing she's told me time and time again: that I am never content, continuously reaching for the next thing. I think of the final page of Jessie Tu's <i>A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing. </i>Her mother describes her personality as hungry. It's not something that can be changed, but perhaps something that can be worked on. A personal essay-ist wrote about how she has started to stray away from personal essays and write about other things. There are so many ideas and events outside those in our small tiny minds, but being caught up in my own has always been a terrible habit. Being self-focussed is difficult, more so for some than others. </p><p>But I am home now, and here to practice empathy and living slow. I hope to be softer, kinder and less confused. I hope to be there for others the way they have been there for me. And I hope to feel settled, for once.</p><p>Love,<br />M</p>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-52753378391425063092020-09-23T17:48:00.009+10:002020-09-23T17:58:13.897+10:00Homage to this blog's beginnings: A Muddled State<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAStugtX48GGDe-a4xBb9nwTtNGfvGDNU15PTdJYjLO2LDwBM5CSwHvL-qmrf6-xBdTDnRuY5sc8heGiQJNtU5Xmxnu46rGWyvrsvoRHceEoOJzTk33RAvo1eS4YVkDCDLBrmRMqfcQg/s1000/2019-05-16-morningglory-1770.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAStugtX48GGDe-a4xBb9nwTtNGfvGDNU15PTdJYjLO2LDwBM5CSwHvL-qmrf6-xBdTDnRuY5sc8heGiQJNtU5Xmxnu46rGWyvrsvoRHceEoOJzTk33RAvo1eS4YVkDCDLBrmRMqfcQg/w400-h266/2019-05-16-morningglory-1770.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>I've been trying not to journal lately. I decided that writing down my thoughts was my bad habit - too self definitive, too limiting. Yet on the phone to a friend last night she described her steps to self improvement: <i>You should journal</i> she said. <i>It helps with emotional awareness.</i> To which I thought, <i>what about manifesting to the moon or God or the universe, and believing that fate has your back? </i>I've tried to make that my mantra lately, with eyes squeezed shut, telling myself to stop planning and writing and vocalising my thoughts.</p><p>Yet I came home, reversed into the bush behind my house while listening to Lorde, sat in a cafe with my high school friends, and watched television from my childhood bedroom (I can't seem to sit still for long enough to watch television anywhere else). I wrote in my diary again, in a planned essay-like manner rather than the sporadic erratic entries my notebook has been receiving for the last few months. While my essay entry ultimately ended up ~inconclusive~, the whole ordeal made me feel grounded.</p><p>I think about this blog's beginnings; the way I categorised my posts into 'books' and 'travel' and '<i>ramblings</i>'. Almost all my posts ended up under <i>ramblings</i>. From the glass table in the dining room, to failed attempts to write on the dusty windy outdoor table, to the empty study room below the science building at school, I would type my uncensored thoughts and sort life out systematically like the mini mathematician I was. </p><p>And I sit here with things I should be writing instead: meaningless articles I've committed to, notes I've been intending to write for weeks - but the only thing I want to write about is myself. I used to love writing about myself as if I were a special journal girl with special thoughts, as if everything in my life had a higher meaning. I get nostalgic driving past places I used to despise, thinking there's some divine symbolism in every aspect of my uneventful life. </p><p>But writing about myself is so unsexy. I feel lame, confined and un-mysterious. Lucy, the protagonist of the book I am reading, describes the single women at her love-addiction therapy group as diseased. My high school friends with their serious boyfriends describe choosing a day curled up at home over a loud meal with friends. They seem so settled, so grounded.</p><p>Coming home to buildings of wide-spaced interiors with earthy tones, surrounded by green grass, red leaves, wattle trees and pink spiky flowers, I can feel my mind soften. I can feel the contrast to in the city where I visualise my psyche as a tangled conglomerate of wire - hard and muddled. But perhaps to be unsettled is what I've always wanted - with big dreams of a forever spontaneous, ambitious life. Perhaps to be unsettled for longer is in my nature. But I wish for something different now. I wrote that I want to get <span color="rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)" face="arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f8f9fa; font-size: 14px;">大 </span>(big) tattooed behind my ear in an almost masochistic way - because I wish to be seen as small but feel anything but.</p><p>Even after writing, I still do not feel content or clarity. I believe I have been subconsciously vocalising less because I am more unsure of what exactly I want to explain now more than ever before. As a consequence I have been listening more, though. I've always wanted to be able to listen more. Perhaps for now I can give and give and give for a change, rather than receive and receive and receive as I always selfishly have.</p><p>As per usual, I feel I must level up. This cannot be it. Yet for once I am not sure what the next level is, which is not necessarily a bad thing.</p><p>Love,<br />M</p>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-37995870624168781722020-07-27T13:28:00.001+10:002020-07-27T13:28:12.957+10:00The Chinese Cab Driver<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.pinterest.com.au/jothearthoe/boards/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="752" data-original-width="564" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht30eReLkrcT3wsiIPshDpPrbYRqu0M9dTJFWZb_yXznrnFJbCsCksBMePrhxbIGthZKDIZjZ08fHckp-ZCSLD962UGnNOk-f_9-YCSqiW95WRrPMKuP2x472IVn-2v98CNZ3pPuGoWQ/s320/e87a60aba6671c2c3f76d0a50ff05efc.jpg" /></a></div><div><br /></div>He began with: "From the ages one to ten they follow their parents, then from ten to eighteen they begin to gain independence, and then once they're eighteen they're gone." and we all laughed. Then he continued, "But that's only white people. Asian people, we're different. But now, here we are, in this country, and our children are over eighteen and they hate their father." and the mood instantly dropped. "We raise them for eighteen years, and now are left with nothing."<div><br /></div><div>Prior to this my father had overtly expressed his concerns about my sister and I living in a different city, and that we were unhappy to see our parents visit for the second time in three weeks. Due to his tendency to speak in black and white terms, he said "my daughters hate me," which set our immigrant cab driver off into his preaching spiral... a spiral that hit a little too close to home.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course our circumstances are different. Our world views are different. My sister and I believed in leaving home and forging our own paths, and our parents were forced into being okay with that. To us, this was reasonable. The Chinese cab driver's university-aged children were living at home with him, and he wouldn't have it any other way. Our parents are thinking of moving to a different city altogether. The Chinese cab driver was a strong advocate for remaining in the same city, even if it meant my parents should upturn their lives to follow us here, for fear of abandonment. To this, my sister responded in her bratty eighteen-year-old manner, "We didn't leave to make new friends. We left because we wanted to get away from you. You coming here would defeat that purpose."</div><div><br /></div><div>I can say we have a different worldview all I want. I can say that we no longer live in the era of the three-generation household - of children never leaving home, of the same neighbourhood for generations, of no aeroplanes and immigration. The Chinese cab driver was yearning for something that I tragically cannot see being possible given our circumstances, and in a way that makes him right. My sister and I are too far flung, too focused on our own trajectories, and according to Asian values, that makes us selfish. We have no consideration for our parents in our lives. They are always welcome, but they are not considered. The welcome into our homes, the promise that we will support them <i>if they come to us</i>, is the Asian compromise. But the sacrifice I see in the prior generation of uncles and aunties, who designate a child to remain home and deny a life in the developed world, to fulfil the responsibility to take care of their parents, that's gone.</div><div><br /></div><div>Last night I began reading Min Jin Lee's <i>Free Food for Millionaires. </i>The novel opens with a Korean family sitting around a dinner table in Queens, New York City. There is a fight between the father, Joseph, and his westernised eldest daughter, Casey. The Chinese cab driver was less assimilated than my father; Joseph was less assimilated than my father; and the pain they seemed to feel watching their children - their misunderstanding of Western values, their sadness at the loss of their own values - makes me feel both guilty and angry.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Chinese cab driver advocated for the simple life. He wished for a world living pay cheque by pay cheque. He wished for a world of always thinking ahead - find a house before it's too late, find a job before it's too late. He understood a world where you must work to get by, and that is all. He will forever live on the third level of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Who cares about finding a job filled with passion? who cares about success and prestige? who cares about enjoyment? Who cares about finding the meaning of life? when the most important thing is family.</div><div><br /></div><div>Casey in <i>Free Food for Millionaires</i> heads to the roof to smoke after Joseph tells her she must leave the house by morning. She contemplates where she will go - will she follow her rich, white friend to Italy and find a job there for a while; or will she bunk in with her white boyfriend? She thinks of the first time she saw the stars outside of New York and the awe she felt. She looks into windows of the buildings around her and studies the lives of others. She explains to her sister what sex feels like, and her sister studies Casey's impulsive, headstrong, raging personality - one that opposes the safety of Asian values in all their conservative and disciplinary glory.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the last week I have seemingly exited my quarantine reverie. Suddenly I feel the need to do the chaotic and unexpected. I want to meet new people. I want to go on adventures. I want to try new things. I want drama and excitement and stupidity. Over lunch with a friend I felt suddenly invigorated, and left with a head full of plans. I felt like I was in a new and improved world - like I was a college girl once more, except this time with autonomy.</div><div><br /></div><div>And then I got in that cab and I could feel my mood crash and burn. My face mask felt too hot and heavy, and my eyes were slowly closing, resolved after attempting to defend my generation to an immigrant man who would never understand. As the first-generation immigrant girl I feel as if it is my right to live the Western life our parents always dreamed of. That's why they moved here, right? They <i>wanted</i> us to assimilate, right? </div><div><br /></div><div>And before Joseph slaps Casey at the end of their fight, she thinks "As her father, he deserved respect and obedience - This Confucian crap was bred into her bones." Because it is. These values will forever be a part of me, and it's all so conflicting. I believe it is my right to live my life to the fullest - being one full of the individual, one that implements the selfishness of both the socialist and capitalist views of the West, of looking out for oneself. Meanwhile, the Eastern values of living, which do not fit into this Western way, are sitting in the background. </div><div>And there they may collect my residual guilt.</div><div><br /></div><div>Love,</div><div>M</div>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-42464044666528644912020-07-07T00:00:00.005+10:002020-07-07T00:14:14.192+10:00Latest Obsessions #4<div>I've been leaning into the binge - the satisfaction of knowing full well that you are over-consuming, and grabbing the soft roundness of your belly like the prosperous fat woman you are. The gluttony of resting Ferrero Rochers, one by one, across the surface that is your abdomen, and the dichotomy between the fullness of your stomach and the sweetness on your taste buds... and being totally okay with it. Lean into the binge.</div><div><br /></div>I feel that lately I have been consuming only the world's finest creations - the culture-forming, the most iconic, the ones that are inescapably on my newsfeeds...<div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHlY1sy_02YKWBhqXA8gavORUBweeS360tA09UOEKjtnf-UVwAZ-zdqKBR_p4ruUdVDl32xAWjGStXbq-DXZr6M7i-Lzmlt0jgYDub6DVnO8PSEfqZgLCx6znyBSN6v1KPLJwvVBaT-g/s1440/mgid_ao_image_mtv.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="1440" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHlY1sy_02YKWBhqXA8gavORUBweeS360tA09UOEKjtnf-UVwAZ-zdqKBR_p4ruUdVDl32xAWjGStXbq-DXZr6M7i-Lzmlt0jgYDub6DVnO8PSEfqZgLCx6znyBSN6v1KPLJwvVBaT-g/w400-h225/mgid_ao_image_mtv.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Keeping Up With the Kardashians</b></div><div>Beginning with season one: Kim is on the brink of fame, Rob Kardashian is my age and sublimely somehow both cute and hot, little Kylie Jenner is an absolute crackhead, and Bruce Jenner is unfortunately born a conservative with an obvious discomfort towards his own identity. Everything about the Kardashians warms my heart. Throughout all their ups and downs and endearing stupidity, each episode ends with the ultimate lesson that family comes first, always, which is perhaps the feel-good feeling that makes the show so addictive.</div><div><br /></div><div>While episodes are filled with sisterly yelling and valley girl accents, accompanied by a questionable trashy version of 2000's fashion, there is something very realistic about this reality TV show. Sure some events seem to be exacerbated for the sake of drama, but everything has a sense of uncensored realness, as if the Kardashians are saying, "Watch me. I'm all yours." I am fascinated by how this family came into fame at the brink of widespread social media. The stars were aligning just for them. The world wanted to watch real people in all their realness and people-ness. </div><div><br /></div><div>I am fascinated by how this family singlehandedly managed to change beauty standards and culture as we know it. Season one is filled with Khloe's snide comments towards Kim's butt, and come season two Kim's butt is suddenly something to be envied?, and come 2020 the majority of people who seek plastic surgery in Hollywood refer to a photo of Kim Kardashian? <i>Keeping Up With the Kardashians</i>, in all honesty, is a show in which Kim and her family run around just being them. They have no message, they are unpolitical, they do not critically think about their cultural influence... They simply run around being pretty and famous, only they redefined both prettiness and fame. It's the Kardashians' world and we're just living in it.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwvYuyyTaH1FtDckOG04cJcgPaDkQjS6E0O_MkASJc30btWdP6fwKtyE6Du8OSU3ZRio2svQvddjx3cXTD5y1A_ekIIQVB3tZQ6T7Hzd9BcurjMzkT1XwYjX-2YmAJkysTQC_j0ly4tw/s1296/lin-manuel_miranda_as_alexander_hamilton_c_joan_marcus.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="1296" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwvYuyyTaH1FtDckOG04cJcgPaDkQjS6E0O_MkASJc30btWdP6fwKtyE6Du8OSU3ZRio2svQvddjx3cXTD5y1A_ekIIQVB3tZQ6T7Hzd9BcurjMzkT1XwYjX-2YmAJkysTQC_j0ly4tw/w400-h225/lin-manuel_miranda_as_alexander_hamilton_c_joan_marcus.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Hamilton</b></div><div>I never thought that the day I'd ask for my sister's DisneyPlus password would be to sit down for three hours to watch a political musical. <i>Hamilton</i> is pure genius. It somehow consists political rap battles and all the complexity and nuance of history, while retaining that classic over-expressive, thematic dynamic of musical theatre. Alexander Hamilton is rich with words and perspectives, with the recurring inability to just 'speak less, smile more', as people look at him in envy. "How does he write like he's always running out of time?" Oh, what an ode to passionate people with one-track minds who want to live a life bigger than themselves. And his wife is kind and loving and feminine, and while I was never rooting for her, I see power in softness with the show's conclusion. And the one song from this musical - there's always one song from a musical - is <i>Satisfied</i>. I mean... just <i>listen</i> to those lyrics.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid3drWxAlGKAh1aiwz923M6zrQOIyN9P_Jm3ej_lyTG5ja_aVaVyNiH8t4j57gohOOJ2z5vxBhrGhHVekDPaR5K37Qwd8r4LWWzrEfCgJMaLJnB6VUwuTOuPdTe6ZuzHI6-QfcaY-NGA/s1777/2020_09_film.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="787" data-original-width="1777" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid3drWxAlGKAh1aiwz923M6zrQOIyN9P_Jm3ej_lyTG5ja_aVaVyNiH8t4j57gohOOJ2z5vxBhrGhHVekDPaR5K37Qwd8r4LWWzrEfCgJMaLJnB6VUwuTOuPdTe6ZuzHI6-QfcaY-NGA/w400-h178/2020_09_film.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Portrait of a Lady on Fire</b></div><div>To me, this film portrays everything it is to be feminine. It is not a Matisse 'paint me like one of your French girls' because the painter is a woman. The film illustrates how a woman perceives a woman, in all of her fiery personality, in her laughter, in her sadness, in the things that move her. To be loved is to truly be seen, to feel understood, and to still feel beautiful in spite of this vulnerability. To love is to be hurt by how another imagines you. To play the role of a poet rather than a lover is to truly see a person in this present moment, in all their breathtaking glory, and to want to remember them this way for the rest of your life, even if you never see them again.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Tv9YoYCKNoE" width="320" youtube-src-id="Tv9YoYCKNoE"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Flesh Without Blood - Grimes</b></div><div>When a friend told me that Elon Musk courted Grimes because he saw this music video and thought she was smart, I knew I had to watch it. Grimes is interesting in that she is the imagining of a small blonde Canadian girl who talks like a nerdy teenager. She is an otherworldly character with no inhibitions; with coloured hair and massive sunglasses; a masochistic Marie Antoinette, a menacing angel, a dark basement gamer girl. Claire Boucher says that Grimes is not sweet. She is not cute and she is not pop. She is meant to be scary, and she is fun, and I love that.</div><div><br /></div><div>Love,</div><div>M</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><br /></div></div>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-71537875426842469632020-06-16T01:19:00.019+10:002020-06-17T12:28:07.620+10:00Latest Obsessions #3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Every morning I wake up, make a smoothie and a cup of tea and read. I sit at the dining table with my roommate's plants (God forbid I ever own a plant), sunlight streaming through the balcony windows, and that mirror we have from my old college dorm room, reflecting myself straight at me. My reflection is actually quite sobering, and as a result I've started to make my face presentable, just to appease this reflection me each morning. This homely life with a surprisingly adequate sleeping schedule needless to say results in plenty of time to scour the internet for new things. Here's the latest:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjGq_LZUj3vdRu2kmcGnKcORNNljUPE7-C3pzrxiEh42fLm8QXynnY2rN4kn65HNDtOrsOktKHy19G6GLsZNRrN7CmLVQ95GOKk4jAP-IVCE7_zcgCwtQ1VtCJpmtof9aSjUUOI0_4-Q/s871/riverside_tiger_mom.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="871" data-original-width="686" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjGq_LZUj3vdRu2kmcGnKcORNNljUPE7-C3pzrxiEh42fLm8QXynnY2rN4kn65HNDtOrsOktKHy19G6GLsZNRrN7CmLVQ95GOKk4jAP-IVCE7_zcgCwtQ1VtCJpmtof9aSjUUOI0_4-Q/s320/riverside_tiger_mom.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><b>READ: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Of course it takes a book I'd always assumed was about an oppressive strict Asian mother to feel such deep love for my culture. You see, the book isn't a "how to" for torture after all. Instead it's a memoir highlighting the nuances of Asian values and their place in the Western world. Yes, Amy Chua has the same unreasonable psychopathic tendencies as my own mother, but like, on steroids - with the same kind of nonsensical rules that made me want to shake her and scream "Why won't you understand" in the heat of my teen angst. However, the way Chua speaks of pushing her children to be their best, unapologetically expecting them to achieve first place because she holds them in such high regard - that's true respect. And then her children succeed, and are driven and ambitious, and teach their mother a few lessons about happiness and rebellion - and then I read articles about the ultimately delusional Western socialist view of "everyone's a winner"; and Chua's description of the violin as a symbol of excellence, refinement and depth, in contrast to the brashness of American consumerism, fast food and Facebook - and I feel myself swell with pride.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>For my creative writing class today I wrote a passage about a jade necklace resting against my chest. It was carved into the shape of a rabbit, my Chinese zodiac. The necklace was a symbol of regality and femininity, of control and poise, in an almost <i>Joy Luck Club</i> elusive intergenerational Asian mother-daughter way. The writing prompt was 'treasure'.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrxkZrabDyRRwYlNTK5XpPyr_fegzLB3hqFnrwvNJrNlOseX-VuzI78GmGVy0aQn1RUvCwAM_evP5YEwAj3TihbqV-sAzI6S1kB924d98RcyGbOOt9J2GddNqSRI3PRN9lutz5RY9LAQ/s767/scrubscast.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="431" data-original-width="767" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrxkZrabDyRRwYlNTK5XpPyr_fegzLB3hqFnrwvNJrNlOseX-VuzI78GmGVy0aQn1RUvCwAM_evP5YEwAj3TihbqV-sAzI6S1kB924d98RcyGbOOt9J2GddNqSRI3PRN9lutz5RY9LAQ/w400-h225/scrubscast.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><b>WATCH: Scrubs</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>My friend once told me that <i>Scrubs</i>, unlike <i>Grey's Anatomy</i>, is an accurate depiction of working in the hospital. And from that moment, I vowed that I would not watch <i>Scrubs</i> until the year I become an intern. If the show is a sitcom about hospital life, then I want to be in on the joke. But with the virus wiping away my first clinical year, I caved. I have been living vicariously through John Dorian - as he gets yelled at by residents, as he encounters patients from all walks of life, as he develops crushes on girls way out of his league - and I am left with nothing but anticipation for my own future, when I will be let out to finally buy coffee from the hospital cafeteria and be exhausted every day like I oh so crave. But for now I live through the comical, endearing life of JD, snacks in hand on my couch laughing out loud. It's just a genuinely good show.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvDH8zcn9f6By3wtgAihgtfhUXtcXGDIan805EdJngfeSaR_g_eQkHIbD6QWaFJK_zlJaoIFEvrAsgnGWnw4HoAOPJSk2B895_aB-JQ5t0TH7O0eiew8iI6kt12zB2e129FdJbiAkl1A/s564/793cd4efc8d0b99a4ad27032a813a462.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="564" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvDH8zcn9f6By3wtgAihgtfhUXtcXGDIan805EdJngfeSaR_g_eQkHIbD6QWaFJK_zlJaoIFEvrAsgnGWnw4HoAOPJSk2B895_aB-JQ5t0TH7O0eiew8iI6kt12zB2e129FdJbiAkl1A/w320-h320/793cd4efc8d0b99a4ad27032a813a462.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div><b>ART: <u><a href="https://www.instagram.com/247.k">@247.k</a></u> tattoo artist on Instagram</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>I made another Pinterest board, about, like, my Instagram feed. I was envisioning a mix between a soft girl and an ABG, like small floral uber feminine dresses and trays of croissants but also completely badass. I'm not sure if I'm playing with a dichotomy between two different aesthetics, two different personalities, but that's besides the point. In the process I discovered this tattoo artist, with her delicate zodiac designs and outlines of sitting tigers. It makes me want to impulsively get a meaningless, pretty, yet somewhat masculine tattoo on my side or my back. Other tattoo artists I've found include <u><a href="https://www.instagram.com/tattooist_basil/">@tattooist_basil</a></u> and <u><a href="https://www.instagram.com/keshna.sana">@keshna.sana</a>.</u></div><div><u><br /></u></div><div><u><br /></u></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyu2nM5sHrPdwKGvwi9qWv2DULxAGYPcd5uat3YJ68daB60lJDfwCD_pF_UH4SBW6v79I6fQpgn2xRctshK5xQdc9dFEBDSlCX7vTwn2_wwjNRr_3Agt89gmmH_xeyTOfqFDHjs27VXg/s1335/7dd26986-e845-4e02-a68f-a446c8b7bb40-screen-shot-2019-09-27-at-95555-am.png" style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="644" data-original-width="1335" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyu2nM5sHrPdwKGvwi9qWv2DULxAGYPcd5uat3YJ68daB60lJDfwCD_pF_UH4SBW6v79I6fQpgn2xRctshK5xQdc9dFEBDSlCX7vTwn2_wwjNRr_3Agt89gmmH_xeyTOfqFDHjs27VXg/w400-h193/7dd26986-e845-4e02-a68f-a446c8b7bb40-screen-shot-2019-09-27-at-95555-am.png" width="400" /></a></div><div><u><br /></u></div><div><b>LISTEN: <u><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6FJMr6XdMbDXhVaKJt6PrN?si=Q9c6eJYkQfWImuVLk5Djew">soundtrack from The Politician</a></u></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>The Netflix show starring Ben Platt, Gwyneth Paltrow and Zoey Deutch, to name a few, is amazing in itself - perfectly intense, socially and culturally relevant, chaotic and entertaining. But its soundtrack... the amount of times I've unsuccessfully attempted to use shazam on snapchat, then paused to google 'that song from the politician episode x' is countless. It began with the theme song - the first time I forewent clicking 'skip introduction' was to listen to <i>Chicago </i>by Sufjan Stevens. And then of course, expecting nothing less after last year's obsession with <i>Dear Evan Hansen,</i> Ben Platt belting his solo <i>River</i> for the death of his friend, the impossibly attractive David Corenswet. And then came <i>Yes I'm Changing</i> by Tame Impala, to which I announced to my roommate, "this song is amazing." And then came a fond throwback, with Astrid dancing to <i>Clearest Blue </i>by Chvrches, my favourite jogging song of 2016, one that cannot help but expel bursts of spontaneous energy. And as I scroll through this playlist for songs that have yet to come, I see Troye Sivan, the picture of pretty teen angst; Charli XCX, Dua Lipa, queens of pop; and many many songs I cannot wait to discover from this newfound library.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8F_DD3GeGsOJDCRcqN9hyphenhyphen6lYqu3Fs5DPqMkt36ir5Jh6GcFQVrml2x_moKhy0ljtaErwQVvOWdDmSgPADmzmcl8C97zgs6kd0nSizrbJG7pUtkGN40CirkkTD5tKc05P_lRlJyIkYAw/s600/a3ba60330be2bef0c654f4446b6c23e6.jpg" style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8F_DD3GeGsOJDCRcqN9hyphenhyphen6lYqu3Fs5DPqMkt36ir5Jh6GcFQVrml2x_moKhy0ljtaErwQVvOWdDmSgPADmzmcl8C97zgs6kd0nSizrbJG7pUtkGN40CirkkTD5tKc05P_lRlJyIkYAw/w240-h320/a3ba60330be2bef0c654f4446b6c23e6.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><b>BEAUTY: blush!</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>I like the colour pink, almost like an anime character drawn with youthful rosy cheeks. I dust the powder over my cheeks with a small smile, then across my nose until I look positively sunburnt, glowing and girlish. I've been thinking with my new skincare routine, of foregoing foundation altogether. Instead I envision myself buying a liquid blush, adding colour to my skin the same way I massage in my moisturiser and sunscreen each morning, with effortlessly satisfying self-care.</div><div><br /></div><div>Love,</div><div>M</div>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-86452196978546150452020-06-12T19:35:00.008+10:002020-06-12T19:48:42.718+10:00Time Is Passing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhbBvA_w4U1D-AbAM6vQmGrQsIPdyfY5zAwnq2bkRl-nbUga5BtaLO5XaHR_6Wd0x8K8Lh9VE-Vdh4EUwIeTBcJ8fU5nwE3Ecnh0wdmPTt522SymtcWXqWRo8gdV4wTdXzi9oWb2DPwA/s769/8D835C66-BDC1-4143-8FEE-DBAA265E0EB4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="769" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhbBvA_w4U1D-AbAM6vQmGrQsIPdyfY5zAwnq2bkRl-nbUga5BtaLO5XaHR_6Wd0x8K8Lh9VE-Vdh4EUwIeTBcJ8fU5nwE3Ecnh0wdmPTt522SymtcWXqWRo8gdV4wTdXzi9oWb2DPwA/s320/8D835C66-BDC1-4143-8FEE-DBAA265E0EB4.jpg" /></a></div><div><br /></div>My notebook is running out of pages. While my diaries usually span a year, if not more, this dark blue leather notebook is barely going to last me until the end of June. I flipped to the first page in horror, to see that my entries began within the four walls of this apartment and are destined to end within the same four walls. Nothing has happened. And so, on a whim, I fished another two notebooks out of my drawer and decided to title them in permanent marker. <i>2018</i> I wrote on the plain black notebook, followed cheesily by <i>consisting the summer I moved out of home and my first year of university - the transition from a high schooler to a girl living in the real world.</i> Then, <i>2019</i> I wrote on the soft brown notebook covered in golden outlines of woodland animals, with another corny title: <i>consisting an insecure girl finding her place amongst the people around her.</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div>I've noticed a running theme in the material I've been consuming - of time passing in phases, in people coming in and out, in changing philosophies and careers and passions.</div><div><br /></div><div>I spent the last two days bingeing that new romantic comedy series starring Anna Kendrick, <i>Love Life.</i> While the show is light-hearted - another one of those meaningless stories about a twenty-something girl living her life in New York City - its timeline spans almost a decade. I follow as she meets her first real boyfriend, gets married and divorced, becomes a mother, and finally finds herself with the job she's always wanted. I watch as her friends end up in their various places, in relationships we never predicted, with problems that only show their heads with time. And I watch as her priorities change, as she matures and learns to validate herself.</div><div><br /></div><div>I spent the last month reading Hanya Yanagihara's <i>A Little Life</i>, following four boys from their time as roommates in college, through their various relationships, through their various careers, until their deaths. I watch as the people in their world bottleneck, their circle getting smaller and smaller, and the different ways they deal with this. Just yesterday a friend messaged "as you grow and mature in life, I think you discover more and more what kind of people you like, and by virtue your friends get fewer and fewer," to which I replied that the idea makes me sad. </div><div><br /></div><div>As I keep reading, each boy's philosophy of life changes, and time seems to pass like water - so naturally, so tragically, until I'm at the end and the journey is breathtakingly over.</div><div><br /></div><div>During quarantine I've been reading personal essays, scouring sites like <u><a href="https://www.nearnessproject.com/">Nearness Project</a></u>, <u><a href="https://www.uniquelyaligned.com/">Uniquely Aligned</a></u> and <u><a href="https://www.bobblehaus.com/pages/view-all">BobbleHaus</a></u>, perhaps searching for some form of individual understanding in these disengaged times. Over the past few months I've read many essays speaking of the 'lack of control' the corona virus has sprung onto peoples' lives, and the anxiety that stems as a result. While I appreciated authors bearing their emotions and souls onto the page, I can't say I particularly related. What did they mean a 'lack of control'?</div><div><br /></div><div>Today though, I came to the realisation that yes, the corona virus has left me in an ultimately uncontrollable situation. I would never have fathomed that I would be spending 6 months with no real structure to my life, with nowhere to formally be besides this apartment. Obviously the virus has left me in its fateful wake just like the rest of us. But no, I never felt anxiety or anything but a complete, delusional control. I've realised that delusional optimism just seems to be my coping mechanism, my mind stubbornly unshakeable, chanting "You are doing just fine."</div><div><br /></div><div>And with this understanding that the virus has in fact altered my life in ways I would not have personally chosen for myself, my mind is clinging to this idea of life moving in phases - unpredictable and out of our control whether we like it or not. And so, on my blue notebook that is running out of pages, I wrote <i>2020 - the corona virus. a time of contemplation.</i> In the grand scheme of things, this 6 months is another phase, one in which we have been blessed with much needed quiet and self reflection. And around us, the world is contemplating too - as people learn to be with their families, be with themselves, tune into injustices external to themselves during this lull in their lives, and simply experiment with a different way of living.</div><div><br /></div><div>And while this has been an important phase,</div><div>life will then return to normal, and this phase will be over and a new one will begin.</div><div><br /></div><div>Love,</div><div>M</div><div><i><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><br /></i></div>Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-84972622785574279592020-05-23T23:52:00.001+10:002020-06-03T09:58:05.193+10:00Latest Obsessions #2In the never-changing environment of quarantine, my only stimulus from the outside world comes via the internet. So I wonder, is this becoming a series?<br />
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<b>ESSAY: <u><a href="https://www.thecut.com/2019/09/the-story-of-caroline-calloway-and-her-ghostwriter-natalie.html">The Story of Caroline Calloway & Her Ghostwriter Natalie</a></u></b><br />
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The nine lives of Caroline Calloway never fail to entertain and intrigue me. There was her 'creative workshop' which ended up being a complete scam but was still honest work (it was so Caroline), her new OnlyFans account (again, so Caroline), and that drama about her breaking quarantine to hang with her new e-boy 20-year-old boyfriend (I die). I'd always likened Caroline Calloway to Tana Mongeau - like, insane but in a bad bitch self-aware way. But this article blew the doors open. Caroline Calloway is NOT self-aware in the slightest. She's like that friend we've all had - the narcissistic, unreliable one who always tells you about their fantastic plans and fantastic stories when you know that's not how it happened, and you know they'll somehow never pull through. But then their entire character is just SUCH A VIBE so you choose to admire them anyway. Like, if Caroline has managed to paint herself as this random-ass famous creative bitch who can do whatever she wants, and her fan-base believes it, then who's to say she's delusional? Like, if everybody thinks she's this person, then doesn't that make her this person? I guess social media can be utilised to solidify an identity in this way, and honestly, it's kind of a great asset. A girl replied to my Instagram story saying, "I just think her whole self aware idiocy is kinda chic sometimes."<br />
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<b>FASHION: <u><a href="https://hbx.com/women/brands/kirin">Peggy Gou's clothing brand, Kirin</a></u></b><br />
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I don't think it's so much that I like the clothes than that I like Peggy Gou's entire persona. In her latest <u><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gESqFUcia6o">Q&A at the Oxford Union</a></u> she talks about why she left design school: "I realised that I only like styling myself. Styling other people is a different story," she laughs. But now she's a major DJ with a <u><a href="https://www.instagram.com/peggygou_">truly amazing Instagram</a></u> filled with winged eyeliner, arm tattoos, and bright printed button-down shirts and kimonos and jumpers. She's in Bali, then Japan, and she's from South Korea, and apparently she lives in Berlin? She describes her clothing line as effortless. "They look like pyjamas." "They make you feel confident." F*ck she's so cool.<br />
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<b>YOUTUBE: <u><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2sYit3cZ2CuD_8FHYH7O_Q">Hyram on skincare</a></u></b><br />
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This week I did a full 180 towards <i>self care</i>. I began by making the Pinterest mood board above, then proceeded to eat three (and only three) meals per day, wake up by 10am, and ambitiously jog 5km before religiously following my latest Chloe Ting workout challenge <i>outdoors</i>. After relaying these new-found habits to a friend, she told me about her new obsession with Hyram. So of course, the next day, I spent 6 hours watching Hyram's videos, researching, and impulse buying an entire new skincare routine. I feel self-loved already.<br />
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<b>ESSAY: <u><a href="https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/asian-americans-in-street-culture/">How Street Culture Shaped Asian-American Identity</a></u></b><br />
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THIS! ESSAY! I love how it talks about how "much of what it is to be Asian-American is still up in the air" because we've always had this immigrant culture of 'keep your head down and assimilate'. We never tried to aggressively fight against racism or define ourselves. History doesn't talk about our major struggles because we didn't have any, or perhaps we just didn't speak up about the injustices we were facing. We never saw them as injustices in the first place. We're worker bees. But street culture changes that. It's a creative space where we, subtly, have a voice, creating an identity through pure aesthetics. My favourite part of this piece describes Anti-Social Social Club as probably the most Asian-American brand around, with a quote from ASSC founder Kyle Ng: "It speaks to the Asian condition. You're anti-social social! It's kids wearing supreme, but they're quiet and shy. How many nerdy Asian kids have you seen that rock the craziest fits?"<br />
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<b>FASHION/ESSAYS: <u><a href="https://www.bobblehaus.com/">Bobblehaus</a></u></b><br />
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And going off that essay, there's a new streetwear brand in town. I first discovered Bobblehaus because of its blog. It's a brand bridging East and West youth culture, with a multitude of essays on their website doing exactly that. And then there's their clothes - androgynous, block colours, simplistic, effortless, confident. I freaking love this website.<br />
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<b>MUSIC: Here's the last few songs I added to my 'p</b><b>op music I run to' playlist</b><br />
<ol>
<li><i>Forever</i> - Charli XCX</li>
<li><i>In Your Eyes remix</i> - The Weeknd, Doja Cat</li>
<li><i>Waves</i> - Kanye West</li>
<li><i>Friends</i> - Justin Bieber, BloodPop</li>
<li><i>Detonate - </i>Charli XCX</li>
<li><i>Adore You</i> - Harry Styles</li>
<li><i>Faith</i> - The Weeknd</li>
<li><i>Physical</i> - Dua Lipa</li>
</ol>
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Love,</div>
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M</div>
Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-81261791892649352782020-05-17T23:15:00.001+10:002020-05-18T09:06:56.093+10:00Latest ObsessionsI've been eating chocolate cookies like they're my sole energy source. Two chocolate cookies for sustenance and suddenly I'm finishing a 2,500 word research report in one day. Another few chocolate cookies in the evening and I'm watching a 2 hour lecture on data structures in C. Another few chocolate cookies at midnight and I'm drawing all 9 quadrants of the abdomen, listing differential diagnoses for abdominal pain. Honestly, days are short and weeks are short and time is simply flying.<br />
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Here's my obsessions for the week:<br />
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<b>WATCH: Now Apocalypse</b><br />
One morning I discovered Karley Sciortino and spent 2 hours in bed watching Instagram video excerpts from her show <i>Slutever </i>- "Your p*ssy is God", "How cool would it be if you went to school and people were like, this is how to say no, and this is how to c*m. Haha. That'll never happen." She's so blatantly <i>funny</i>. And then I listened to her first <i>Love in Quarantine </i>podcast. And then, finally, I watched her television show <i>Now Apocalypse</i>. Like, I never knew how much I needed to see Avan Jogia (Beck from <i>Victorious</i>) and Tyler Posey (Scott from <i>Teen Wolf</i>) make out until I actually saw it happen - with all these hallucinatory fireworks going on in the background no less. And then there's Beau Mirchoff (Matty from <i>Awkward</i>) doing naked photo shoots and crying a lot. The gender roles are like, completely switched, with Carly, who is a dominatrix cam girl in the most nonchalant, realistic way possible, and this European genius robot lady who only wants polyamory (No monogamy. God forbid.) Like, if somebody made a chaotic mash up of all my teenage celebrity crushes in the most modern, fluid, random, constantly trashy fluorescent environment, it would be <i>Now Apocalypse</i>.<br />
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<b>SHOP: Muji</b><br />
Okay, I know I'm late to the party, but I finally succumbed to buying Muji paper and Muji pens in every single colour (which only came to $14. Why did I ever think this place was overpriced?) and suddenly my notes are BEAUTIFUL. It's literally magic. I can't explain it. My sister speculates that it's the delicacy of the lines on the grid paper. I speculate that it's the perfect relationship between the ink of the pens and the texture of the paper. Overall, I think that the Japanese brand has a keen eye for detail, proving once again that being rash and inpatient will never give you your desired outcome.<br />
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<b>WATCH/LISTEN: Jhene Aiko's BS animated visual</b><br />
Jhene Aiko's levelled up her vibe once again with this anime-inspired music video. Why does she get to do stuff like this? Why does she get to be so cool?<br />
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<b>WATCH: High Fidelity</b><br />
Zoe Kravitz is a record-store owner in New York City who obsessively reminisces over all her exes. She's a sad girl living her best life in the New York art scene. She makes me feel so in tune with my emotions - like it's okay to <i>not know</i> what I'm feeling? Also, she wears this yellow jumper with jeans and low pigtails and looks really f*cking good. And then there was that time she wore a Hawaiian shirt as a... jacket? And that time she wore a massive band t-shirt but tucked it into a pleated school skirt with vans as she tromped into some divorced eccentric art lady's house on the Upper West Side. Can I manifest that?<br />
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<b>WATCH/LISTEN: Christian Yu play the guitar on his Instagram</b><br />
I recently discovered Sydney-born past K-pop star, now video director, b-boy, dude who's been posting his jam sessions on his Instagram. I have a celebrity crush, but it's on a whole other level.<br />
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<b>READ: A Little Life</b><br />
There's a boy with no past. Well, he has a past, but it's so excruciatingly different that he may as well be a blank slate. From birth until he arrived at college he didn't exist. As somebody who attributes much of who people are to their upbringing, this is intriguing for me. You see, people are predictable. Meet enough of them and they all start to fit into (relatively flexible) boxes. The other characters in the book do. There's an eccentric boy from a large encouraging family, a confused boy from a mix-raced wealthy family, and a kind struggling actor from a broken family. But the boy with no past... he's so sad, and <i>beautiful</i>. I'm still only at the beginning of the book, so perhaps his past will become clearer soon. For now though, I can't put it down. This is the book I needed to get me out of my impatient, constantly buzzing, non-reading funk.<br />
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Love,<br />
MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-9697122649540240262020-05-14T01:41:00.000+10:002020-05-14T02:09:14.494+10:00Lady Bird in Hindsight<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The first time I watched <i>Lady Bird</i> I cried. It was the summer of 2017/18 - the summer I turned 18, received my acceptance letter to a university in the big city, and moved out of home. Tears spilled out of my eyes as Lady Bird described how much she loved driving in Sacramento, with shots of greenery and lakes in the picturesque suburban town she'd spent her entire senior year trying to escape. I even imagined her describing the excessive roundabouts I love about my small home city, with my favourite road alongside the hills of baby trees, driving towards the mountain and the tiny tower in the distance on a sunny day. When I first moved, the thing I missed most about home was driving too.<br />
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I didn't cry while watching <i>Lady Bird </i>tonight. The emotions were there, like a tiny thing of the past, but not enough to bring my eyes to water. Having come home during the virus, I've been marvelling at the beauty of my suburb. I've been climbing mountains with views of the city I know so well - the urban city, they call it; a city built amongst the lakes and the trees; each place marked by my past footsteps - climbing the mountain we drove up the summer of 2016, standing through the sun roof, wind blowing my hair and my face and my eyes, but I just had to keep them open; and finding the rock we stood at before I left for the summer, where we took off our shirts and flashed the barren landscape. Perhaps I didn't cry because this city doesn't mean as much to me as it used to, which makes me sad. In <i>Lady Bird,</i> after reading her college admissions essay, Sister Sarah Joan remarks, "You clearly love Sacramento... you write about Sacramento so affectionately, and with such care." to which Lady Bird responds, "do I?" I guess we all move on.<br />
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To me, now, <i>Lady Bird</i> is a reminiscent slice of life. In 2018, <i>Lady Bird</i> was symbolic of my move - zoned in on that final summer, working shifts, her mother crying, and arriving at the airport. However, now, I see the wider picture. Perhaps <i>Lady Bird </i>resonated so powerfully with me because the story was relatable the entire way through, even towards the end. In 2018, Lady Bird's final scenes in New York seemed scary and surreal: getting way too drunk, saying things she didn't mean, and kissing boys she didn't care about. In hindsight, the moment I arrived in the big city, I did exactly that. And a month later, I was back on my favourite road with the tiny trees and the mountain and the tower, feeling very emotional about it all.<br />
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<i>Lady Bird</i> is reminiscent of going to an all girls' catholic school, with the measuring of skirt-lengths, defiantly not saying 'amen' after the prayer during school chapel, and that one girl in class who brags very loudly about the first time she had sex. Now that these things no longer matter to me, I laugh at how we needed a school co-curricular to meet boys. I laugh at how our sheltered minds, who lived off romance movies and young adult novels, could see a boy perform on stage, or at a piano recital, and immediately develop a crush. I laugh at the intensity of school socials, seeing our crush across the gym dance floor and mustering the courage to talk to him. <i>Lady Bird </i>makes me feel seen. It makes me feel less contempt towards my infuriatingly sheltered high school experience, and instead find the humour in it. I learned a lot.<br />
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<i>Lady Bird </i>is reminiscent of meeting the boy who is different from all those private school boys. He hand rolls cigarettes, listens to obscure music, and is most definitely a soft boy. He teaches you things about culture, and you admire him. He is so <i>cool</i>. <i>Lady Bird</i> is reminiscent of feeling so out of your depth as you walk into a deserted parking lot where everybody is smoking. You don't know how to smoke, you don't know what to say, but you feel as if you need to act like you belong there. <i>Lady Bird </i>is reminiscent of being high in someone's kitchen, waiting eagerly for food to come out of the microwave, giggling but also having no idea what's going on. In hindsight, I wonder how these experiences could have mattered so much to me back then. As stupid as they seem now, they shaped me.<br />
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In hindsight, I wish I'd figured it all out sooner. Lady Bird seems to figure out what matters to her by the time prom comes around. With every experience, she is honest, and wild, and ultimately unselfish. I was not like that.<br />
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<i>Lady Bird</i> makes me think about my final year at home with my mum, and all my feelings of not-enough-ness. My mum used to ask me why I was always reaching. How many times would I have to level up before I would be content?<br />
I spent the entire year reaching for ambiguous dreams of leaving the city. Just like Lady Bird's mother, mine pushed back - "How are you going to pay for that?" "Why do you want to get away from me so badly?" She didn't want me to leave. We had the kind of relationship where we would fight every single day yet still make up. An arbitrary conversation could hit a soft point and immediately become aggressive. Her honest comments about whether a dress looked nice on me would make me defensive, because while I told her I didn't care about her opinions, and truly thought I didn't, I think her opinions always mattered the most. In hindsight, I think these were the growing pains of raising a teenage girl on the cusp of independence. I was trying to be convictional about what I wanted, while having no idea what I wanted; and she was finding it difficult to let go.<br />
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A few days before Mother's Day, I went through old photo albums from when she was my age. I saw her at 20, wearing the hoodie she's now passed down to me. I saw her at her 21st birthday party, opening presents, her face so much like mine. I saw her a little older than me, with my dad, travelling all around the world. I saw that she had a life, and I saw the parallels between her experiences and mine. I forget that she wanted things too, and that she once moved away from home too. In the final scene, Lady Bird asks her mum, "Hey mom: did you feel emotional the first time that you drove in Sacramento? I did and I wanted to tell you, but we weren't really talking when it happened."<br />
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After leaving the cinema in 2018, my mum and I sat in the car in silence. We had both just wiped tears from our eyes, and just like in the first scene of <i>Lady Bird</i>, I brought up my leaving and she got mad at me.<br />
<br />
Love,<br />
MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-69590696599861867472020-05-08T14:46:00.002+10:002020-05-15T12:19:53.491+10:00Currently: Feels like I'm on Adderall 24/7We're well into the second month of quarantine so you'd think it'd be the perfect time to relax. Most people have succumbed to new routines with heaps of free time to do, well, whatever they please. Theoretically I should be tanning, or staring into space, or feeling calm, or like, not feeling like I have somewhere to be and something to do. Instead I feel more rushed than ever.<br />
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I won't cook anything more complicated than an omelette because I'm scared it'll take up too much time. Perhaps I just don't like cooking. Even exercise feels like too much of an unproductive time commitment. Is Chloe Ting effective? What's the point of doing a second <i>booty burn</i> video when it didn't even hurt that much the first time round? I can't binge watch shows, or sit through a movie without going on my phone. I attempted watching anime. Subtitles are hard to read when you're distracted. The only reason I can get through an entire 20 minute episode of <i>Community</i> is because I'm holding out for the end scene between Troy and Abed - the best part of the show. My brain is just bzzzzz... like real world rush hour but with instant teleportation, from one safari tab to the next, constantly doing <i>something.</i></div>
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Quarantine has been like this build up of projects. With all that daunting endless time laid out before me, I felt pressured into being productive... doing every single thing I've ever been meaning to do... which is a lot. It started with writing too much on this blog, then learning how to code, then treating binge watching television shows like a race rather than enjoyment:</div>
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<ul>
<li><i>Russian Doll</i> to be completed in a day - what an incredible chaotic New York vibe. I would like to manifest a part of Nadia.</li>
<li><i>Money Heist </i>to take up all my time - I couldn't do it. 4 seasons in Spanish was too much of a commitment.</li>
<li>And now <i>Hollywood </i>for the eye candy - It seems as if 1 season, 8 episodes is the largest commitment I can make right now. And even after a cliff hanger, my fingers are still drawn to checking my phone, over and over... I need to assert my opinions. It's a one-way assertion when it's online.</li>
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And then came the obsessive writing - personal essays with fake deadlines, portraying ideas half-formed, writing with nothing really to write about anymore, because supposedly nothing is happening. But with the addition of my extremely difficult now-online degree (medicine, who would've thought that would be hard) there is <i>so much</i> happening. I find myself in the middle of class obsessing over different projects. I find myself unable to sleep because I'm obsessing over different projects. I have 50 million passions right now, and 50 million deadlines, and I'm exhausted. I'm bzzzzzzzz exhausted. </div>
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It's a new manic episode every day. One day I'll fixate on making the most colourful, diagrammatic A3 notes on the mind-numbing topic of syncope - textas strewn across my desk, textbooks open, notes on my monitor, notes on my laptop - for 8 hours straight. The next day I'll be sitting on the floor surrounded by 100 of my dad's old photo albums. The next day I'll be covered in glue and scrap paper. I decided to become a collage-artist. I want to learn how to journal with washy tape. I want to do a workout challenge religiously. I want to become a better med student than I've ever been. I want to become a better piano player than I ever was.</div>
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I look at my definitive timetable, and our country's almost-definitive situation, and it seems as if things are going back to normal. That endless time isn't endless anymore. In 2 weeks I'll probably be invited to dinner parties again. Restaurants will be open again. Only 2 more online teaching blocks, which seem incredibly short now, and I'll be in the hospital 5 days a week. I'll have to dress up again. I'll have to talk to people again. I don't think I know how to do that anymore.</div>
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Quarantine is like a new life for me. I'm in so far deep, a different person. But I'm not emerging a butterfly. I feel like I'm emerging an alien. Nothing from the old world sparks enjoyment for me. Right now it's just me in my bubble, bare face, hoodie and leggings... and I don't really want to leave just yet. There's so much more to do.</div>
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Love,</div>
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M</div>
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Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-53229983433028759922020-04-29T17:46:00.000+10:002020-04-29T18:10:39.626+10:00I think my heart stopped during Mindy Kaling's Never Have I Ever<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxuHZsWMZDILpkk_WbftBJOsSoB4R61ZTBnuo8SGx23Rq5y5rBH2lyG9rfbowbEOXt8YDFIfdf2uJdgPjRG9xAwaTSbboZzJ0DtGTapxYK5z4ItStF7lpyVwdT9bTKCjgx4RH0TSeZXw/s1600/d81761a6-b369-4770-b28a-115648c4bb1b.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="789" data-original-width="1440" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxuHZsWMZDILpkk_WbftBJOsSoB4R61ZTBnuo8SGx23Rq5y5rBH2lyG9rfbowbEOXt8YDFIfdf2uJdgPjRG9xAwaTSbboZzJ0DtGTapxYK5z4ItStF7lpyVwdT9bTKCjgx4RH0TSeZXw/s400/d81761a6-b369-4770-b28a-115648c4bb1b.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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I have cried so many times over the past two days while binging Netflix series <i>Never Have I Ever</i>, for so many inexplicable reasons. Perhaps it's the undeniable connection I feel to Devi Vishwakumar as a first-generation migrant. Perhaps it's the connection I feel to her teenage-girl mind and obsession with a half-Japanese boy (so my type). Perhaps it's the all-too-familiar mother-daughter relationship. Perhaps it's the grief she feels towards her dead father. Perhaps it's the intensity of feeling like a <i>lost girl</i>. In my last cry-out on Twitter I screamed "Words cannot express how much I love <i>Never Have I Ever", </i>but I'm going to try.<br />
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I first heard about <i>Never Have I Ever</i> through Mindy Kaling's twitter about a month ago, and for obvious reasons, immediately added the show to my watch list. First of all, it's a first-generation migrant story. I eat that shit up. Second of all, it's Mindy freaking Kaling. I flashback to 2014, watching T<i>he Mindy Project</i> in the school library. Mindy was a chaotic, comedic, woman-of-colour doctor. My dream. In my teenage eyes, Mindy could never, and will never, do any wrong. Of course she'd make this show everything I'd ever dreamed of.</div>
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Unpacking the ultimate first-generation migrant experience portrayed by Devi, an especially relatable scene occurred in <i>Episode 4: Never Have I Ever... Felt Super Indian</i>. Devi arrives at a Hindu event feeling complete disdain towards her culture. She knocks down her traditional dress, speaks about how the whole event is dorky, and ultimately, feels ashamed. She just wants to fit in, and according to the norms of her predominantly white high school, being All-American is the way. This brings me back to my 14-year-old self touching down at the airport in Malaysia. Looking around, I just felt... better than everyone. I was from a white country, with white people, where we did cool white people things like in the American movies. As far as I'd seen, Asians were nerds. We played the piano and got good grades. In the back of my mind, I think I'd always wanted that aesthetic of being part of a big blonde sorority girl group - because that was <i>normal</i>.</div>
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At the Hindu event, Devi runs into an older family friend who's already left for his Ivy League college (obviously), and is back to celebrate the holiday. Expecting him to make fun of their culture as they usually do, he instead expresses his newfound love for being Indian. <i>"I just thought, am I going to be this insecure Indian guy who hates doing Indian things? Coz that's it's own identity. It's just a shitty one." </i>I feel like as we grow older, we go through this journey of falling in love with our culture and having the best of both worlds. In my case, this realisation began with Asian YouTubers (The Fung Brothers, NigaHiga), who shook me into understanding that hating on your culture is not attractive. This led me into a phase of digging deep into the rabbit hole to figure out what the whole immigrant experience <i>means</i>, wearing a cheongsam to my high school graduation, feeling unique, hyper-sexualised, occasionally fetishised, and having a disdain for the people I met who really did think that being an Asian who hated being Asian was a cool identity (God, I've encountered so many of them). </div>
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However, habitual views from repetitive under-representation still run deep, and even post-enlightenment, I still occasionally catch myself. Coming to university where I study medicine, a classic Asian degree, I encountered a population of people who had grown up in a predominantly Asian demographic. These suburbs and communities are everywhere in Western cities nowadays, and I love seeing it, but I didn't grow up in it. I couldn't help but feel my 14-year-old self at the Malaysian airport creep in. I had this underlying feeling that I was better than them, cooler than them, because I had so many white friends, and had experienced all the cool white people things like in the American movies. After everything I'd learned about loving myself, this pathetic white-supremacy mind-set could still creep in. Over the years, I can feel myself growing further into my culture and my own skin, but it's a journey I'll probably be on forever in an ever-changing cultural landscape.</div>
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Another profound experience represented by Devi was her argumentative, head-strong relationship with her mother. I'm not sure if this is a migrant-thing, with all the opposing cultural views, or an every-race thing, but goodness I could see so much of my teenage self living with my mother - except this time I could see it from the maternal side too. In <i>Never Have I Ever</i> Devi and her mother argue not just about the usual strict parenting rules, but also about smaller things like losing her sheet music. They get so frustrated over the little things that it turns into screaming matches, with neither side budging. I recall my 16-year-old self yelling down the stairs at my mum, screaming "I hate you"s and "You don't understand." and she'd get so riled up and scream back "You know what? You're a bitch!" even though we're not allowed to call each other that. I remember my mum sobbing that I'm too headstrong, that she can't deal with me anymore, in the same way Devi's mother does. <i>"She's no daughter of mine." </i></div>
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What I didn't realise at the time was how hurt my mother felt by my words, crying in her bedroom every time I told her I hated her; or how difficult it is for one stubborn woman to raise another, in a foreign country. I remember the night before I moved out of home, my mother and I got into our usual fight about my independence. I wanted to go to a party with my college friends. She wanted to have dinner with me one last time. At the end of the argument I made some lame excuse about "it hurting too much to see her again. I needed to rip the bandaid off." and she began to cry, hugged me and told me she was going to miss me so much. I began to cry too, which I didn't understand because I was literally ditching her for a college party. It took me almost a year out of home to really appreciate my mum, not just for everything she's done for me, but for the phenomenal woman she is. Since then, we've had many conversations in hindsight, about the cultural barrier and the way she raised me - every calculated move she made in sending me to public school then private school (for the exposure, then the opportunities), the forced trips back to Malaysia (to understand my culture) and the rules she enforced (our values). Who I am today was not me independently forging a path for myself. It was her all along.</div>
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And finally, let's talk about the mind of a teenage girl. At the beginning of <i>Never Have I Ever</i> Devi wishes to "be invited to a party with alcohol and hard drugs" and for a hot boyfriend. If that isn't the perfect representation of my desperate mind as a teenage girl, I don't know what is. Although, I would've felt a lot less desperate if I knew every teenage girl was probably thinking the same thing at the time. Where was this show when I was 14? It's in the way Devi runs up to her hot half-Japanese crush and blatantly asks him to have sex with her, with the naivety of somebody who doesn't understand what sex really is - We wanted something we hadn't seriously comprehended yet.</div>
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Underlying all this is an ocean of unexplained emotions. In Devi's case, she's struggling with the trauma of her dad's recent death. In the case of every other teenage girl, it was probably this feeling of a deep seated insecurity. Unpacking the reasoning behind wanting to drink alcohol and have a boyfriend, it all comes down to belonging and validation from our peers. Teenage girls are fragile and are finding who they are. As we grow older, we branch away from this susceptibility, but ultimately, as a 20-year-old, I feel like my mind is just a wiser version of that lost girl - meaning, I'm still lost. It's all about making mistakes, and existential crises every day, and losing your shit over the smallest things - and having the people who know you best ask you <i>what you want, what it is you're striving for</i> because you, yourself don't even know. I don't think I'm the only one here.</div>
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And I don't know if it's because it's a migrant-thing that so many experiences in this show resonate with me, or if there's elements of this that relate to everyone. But yeah, words cannot explain how much I love Mindy Kaling's <i>Never Have I Ever</i>. Just freaking watch it.</div>
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Love,</div>
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M</div>
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Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-4374590915325872662020-04-20T21:52:00.000+10:002020-04-21T01:46:43.005+10:00Asking the Existential Questions: Am I Michael Scott?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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On Friday I received a rejection email to another one of my half-assed applications. As with every rejection, I rolled it around my brain, asking 'Why didn't they pick me?' It's a kind of entitled mindset: I think that just because I have good intentions, of course I should get the position. But how can I expect to be handed things on a platter when everybody else has a collection of credentials, experience and references under their belt. Meanwhile, I've written a one-sentence application that I've convinced myself represents <i>my personality,</i> as per usual. Upon reflection, I've realised that throughout both private school and medical school, I have never once fully gotten professionally involved, taken up responsibility or done the work for the right reasons. I've always had the mindset that it's not my thing, it's not my crowd - but how can it not be my thing or my crowd if it's my life-long <i>career</i>?<br />
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What I've always been though, is present. I am never the organiser, but I am always the entertained. I am always present to say something completely inappropriate, prioritise making friends in situations where friends are not meant to be made, and unnecessarily bring my personal life into every professional conversation. <i>Does that not perfectly describe The Office's Michael Scott?</i> He cares more about making friends and being liked than doing work. He makes inappropriate jokes that rub people the wrong way, even though he thinks they're funny. He feels the need to tell everybody how his relationships are going. He is sad, desperate and oblivious.<br />
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On the other hand, Michael Scott probably has the best intentions out of every character on the show. He remembers everybody's birthday, was the only person who showed up at Pam's art show, and when he jumps onto a not-moving abandoned train in Season 4, attempting to run away, Jan finds him and says, very accurately, "You were there for me, by my side, without even a thought. That's just who you are."<br />
For goodness sake, I even named my pink teddy bear after Michael Scott, just because I admire how completely genuine he is. However, as Michael Scott demonstrates perfectly, good intentions aren't everything.<br />
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Today, while jogging the same chilly route from my high school years, my mind continually flipped to myself jogging around sunny Centennial Park, as I do when I'm in Sydney. It felt like a representation of who I once was, who I am, and consequently who I'd like to become. <br />
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I wrote in my diary that I'd like to become more professional and less fussed about how well people know <i>the real me</i>. But does that completely diss all the open honesty that I love about Michael Scott? <i>Is it possible to be completely honest without being Michael Scott?</i> To me, complete honesty does involve making everything personal and saying what I'm thinking. It involves perhaps appearing childlike and desperate. I wrote that taking on a public character would feel inherently two-faced to me.<br />
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But I don't want to appear childlike and desperate. Is my desire to not appear childlike and desperate worth compromising my absolute sincerity? Yes.<br />
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After spending half my day making Pinterest mood boards, I have a better idea of the person I'd like to be, aesthetically anyway (life imitates art?). Quarantine seems like the perfect opportunity for reinvention, and this is what I've come up with:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwgiwxNtxsTdCe2S9lez4TxSbiE26Nqz2GPqPEfJ3Mq01vu06PXbShFM1-Hm42Jy8edDvMztWpg3-lyWwUarULosZ_nl5pjtzlQDbKdwmxQFFLJEQHjxz-_b5syGdvMLdFkx9CvjJcmQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-04-20+at+4.55.22+pm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1098" data-original-width="1600" height="438" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwgiwxNtxsTdCe2S9lez4TxSbiE26Nqz2GPqPEfJ3Mq01vu06PXbShFM1-Hm42Jy8edDvMztWpg3-lyWwUarULosZ_nl5pjtzlQDbKdwmxQFFLJEQHjxz-_b5syGdvMLdFkx9CvjJcmQ/s640/Screen+Shot+2020-04-20+at+4.55.22+pm.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Instagram accounts to follow: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/margaret__zhang/">@margaret__zhang</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/daphalestudios/">@daphalestudios</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/ashleighuynh/">@ashleighuynh</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/wolfiecindy/">@wolfiecindy</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/sarahsuuu/">@sarahsuuu</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/imjennim/">@imjennim</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/kawaniprenter/">@kawaniprenter</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/maiacotton/">@maiacotton</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/sammmyrobinson/">@sammmyrobinson</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/_yanyanchan/">@_yanyanchan</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/stellamaxwell/">@stellamaxwell</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/jennierubyjane/">@jennierubyjane</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/juicyyy_____/">@juicy____</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/itsnotsonia/">@itsnotsonia</a></span><br />
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I titled this board 'MANIFEST'. I feel like it's what I was getting at when I decided that this year I'd like to be pretty all the time, in my new sunlit apartment with my new white bedroom, always well-dressed, my most feminine self.<br />
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There are two girls I recently followed on Instagram who are friends of friends. One girl has a magical black cat, always wears nice underwear and lets everybody know it, and is taking magnificent glittering selfies even given the circumstances. The other calls herself 'my own kind of princess'. She wears Chanel ribbons in her hair, writes essays in the sunlight, and is spending isolation being her best self - "Fall in love with your solitude."<br />
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In order to be utterly <i>femme</i> I am going to need to learn how to shut my mouth, be a quiet achiever, and be a generally harmonious human being. Basically, the opposite of Michael Scott. I'll work on it.<br />
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And for days when the cracks appear:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP5RU008ZggRx-nA-wS3xJPAl3ziJm0XmpVpqTXicXXy0oWR1D1BeL7stVDbyPZihA5R9jdeX_bCk2PyUn6mSgeijrzF5pVE8jtLlgqrpPFHy-gMlQQ3zJ20H7BNG8IiC257C04mc8LQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-04-20+at+6.25.12+pm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="965" data-original-width="1600" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP5RU008ZggRx-nA-wS3xJPAl3ziJm0XmpVpqTXicXXy0oWR1D1BeL7stVDbyPZihA5R9jdeX_bCk2PyUn6mSgeijrzF5pVE8jtLlgqrpPFHy-gMlQQ3zJ20H7BNG8IiC257C04mc8LQ/s640/Screen+Shot+2020-04-20+at+6.25.12+pm.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Instagram accounts to follow: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/babymeia/">@babymeia</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/alexademie/">@alexademie</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/peggygou_/">@peggygou_</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/whoiskat/">@whoiskat</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/bbyg6rl/">@bbyg6rl</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/pasabist/">@pasabist</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/younghotyellow94/">@younghotyellow94</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/oanhdaqueen/">@oanhdaqueen</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/japanesegrandpa/">@japanesegrandpa</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/madisonbeer/">@madisonbeer</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/iblamejordan/">@iblamejordan</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/naomiroestel/">@naomiroestel</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/gabby.hua/">@gabby.hua</a></span><br />
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I always thought that once I left the over-stimulating lifestyle of living on campus, the chaos would leave my life. However, unexpected things continue to occur, and I've realised that this is just how life is in the outside world. I am inherently not a slow-moving or complacent person. After an unsuccessful 20 years on this earth, perhaps being calm and feminine just isn't me. So if I'm going to be chaotic, I'd at least want to look like this - emotions point blank on my face (but pretty), eating food but having fun, disheveled but in a cute way. The opposite of Michael Scott.<br />
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So, while I will always keep your good intentions in my heart, good bye Michael Scott. The childlike honesty is leaving my body. I want to grow up now.<br />
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Love,<br />
MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-50129716225622464502020-03-27T19:44:00.000+11:002020-03-27T23:39:45.768+11:00COVID-19 and meIn the midst of social isolation the internet has been screaming for personal writing. Bring back the internet of 2012, with Blogger and Wordpress, the prime time of <u><a href="https://www.rookiemag.com/">RookieMag</a></u>, buckets of messy personal essays with obscure this-is-what-I'm-thinking titles. The closest I have found to this comes in the form of <u><a href="https://www.manrepeller.com/2020/03/personal-blogs-we-need-you.html">Man Repeller</a></u>, an undefined space on the Internet where I came across my current state of mind in the first place. In an attempt to figure out what completely unrelated, random subject I could potentially study in our next ~online~ trimester, I was talking to my friend who studies journalism and we discussed the concept of opinion pieces - how his tutor prompted them to write about <i>their experience </i>with COVID-19. He ended up publishing an article titled <i>Friendly Reminder: the corona virus does not mean you get to be a dick to Asians</i>. The article begins with his personal story. His! Personal! Story!<br />
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Now, if I wrote an opinion piece on COVID-19 and me, well, things are about to get whacky:<br />
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At 2am this morning I sleepily jotted thoughts for a potential short story into my diary (creative writing is another avenue I may take in my quest to study a random subject next trimester). I write about Harper, a mathematical genius, and the world that is currently under an outrageous alien invasion - Although, the story is more about Harper and her twitter and engineering boys than the invasion. It shows how big things may be happening in the world, but life still goes on, and if you're deep enough in your bubble, the world really may not affect you at all. Like, I saw a tweet saying <i>"has anyone told the Amish what's going on"</i>. Is that not ME?<br />
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So, I'd say the moment COVID-19 really touched my otherwise impenetrable life was when I received the email that my entire university timetable will be online for the next 5 months, confirmed. 5 months. 5 MONTHS. FIVE MONTHS? Well, safe to say I was fuming, emotional, sad, mad that I had spent 3 weeks miserably adjusting to a new 2020 routine, 2 weeks having the time of my life, and now THIS? Over-dramatically hyperventilating, I put on my pharmacy uniform, went to work, and burst through the doors talking very very fast. "This is the only socialisation I'm going to get," I sob. My colleague elbow taps me like there-there, even though she's being express shipped back to her home country and will be locked out of Australia for the next 6 months.<br />
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That night I post on my social media a video of <u><a href="https://www.instagram.com/tv/B-ECzeTFrJ6/?hl=en">Bretman Rock putting mentos into a gold-painted booty sculpture.</a></u> "Today we will be discussing what happens to my booty hole when I eat dairy. This is dairy and this is my booty hole." Like many other annoying people on the internet, I am using social media as a coping mechanism. It's a free for all. Routines are out the window. One of the questions in Man Repeller's article "<u><a href="https://www.manrepeller.com/2020/03/social-distancing-quarantine-questions.html">All the Questions That Ran Through My Head Yesterday</a></u>" was "<i>Will we wish we never posted anything on social media during this time?</i>" Other things I've recklessly posted include <u><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B-ACJljjrbh/">this video</a></u> of Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining how flattening the curve works, <u><a href="https://twitter.com/NewYorker/status/1241328245397770241">this article</a></u> on growing anti-Asian sentiment from the New Yorker which I captioned "minor feelings", screenshots of THAT Zoom meeting where my camera was the only one on in a class of 50 people and I was on my phone the entire time, a photo of myself trying to persuade people in Australia to get Twitter while we're in social isolation, and the following tweets (which nobody saw anyway because nobody in Australia has twitter):<br />
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"<i>currently peaking in quarantine where nobody can see me. life is unfair.</i>"</div>
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"<i>would rather be a soft gurl but i think i accidentally picked hard gorl."</i></div>
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<i>"Ok 2020 is officially cancelled and im sad :(("</i></div>
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<i>"anyone else feel like their life was getting real good and then BOOM apocalypse virus :(("</i></div>
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After work I go home, smoke some weed, YouTube 'Mandelbrot's Fractal' and set my alarm for the next morning, planning to test webcam angles and lighting in preparation for my Microsoft Teams group meeting, since my camera <i>clearly</i> won't turn off anyway. Unfortunately my lazy self only manages to wake up 5 minutes before the meeting and I'm sitting there on my bed - no makeup, Adidas track pants, only one with their camera on yet again. I feel like the freaking boss. Wait, can they see what's on my bedside table? I'd better clean it up. I open photobooth on my Mac just to see what they're seeing. Yup. Presentable.</div>
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I go to work at the pharmacy again that day and there's a new guy working, and he's kind of cute N95-mask-up, until he takes the mask off and reveals the wonders a respirator can do for catfishing. The boy needs to shave. The other pharmacy boy who I've deemed "Pharmacy Boy" tells me <i>artistically </i>(because he's always telling me things <i>artistically</i>) about how he needs to go to London in May to audition for some prestigious acting school. Is that essential travel? He tells me it definitely is.</div>
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That day I post on my social media this cartoon by Maddie Dai:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI4enwhX70Ywlk-Tiv-GLOdA0ML87kaCWIXLJzkvdBu22fZLPchiLec7Zd6SMkWnLI5qEPu4GqSerH2FEsz_bJi6JaZRMMJHviGDofYReYu0q2-ceF-C-BbjwQM5Ur_xhhvzt7814UmQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-03-27+at+5.18.17+pm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1178" data-original-width="1162" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI4enwhX70Ywlk-Tiv-GLOdA0ML87kaCWIXLJzkvdBu22fZLPchiLec7Zd6SMkWnLI5qEPu4GqSerH2FEsz_bJi6JaZRMMJHviGDofYReYu0q2-ceF-C-BbjwQM5Ur_xhhvzt7814UmQ/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-03-27+at+5.18.17+pm.png" width="315" /></a></div>
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and tweet "<i>I think Dennis the pharmacist knows I'm suffering so he gave me lots of shifts even tho he knows i can't do shit, just so I have somewhere to socialise <3 luv u dennis."</i></div>
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Wednesday morning comes and I speculate that two classmates are flirting on the Microsoft Teams chat during our online tutorial class. I feel so personally attacked that I dream about it that night. What is happening?</div>
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That day my roommate invites 3 boys to our apartment. We eat burgers, visit our old college, and all around make a terrible effort at practicing social distancing. It makes me feel hypocritical because that same day my mother texts me asking if my sister should come home, and I reply that "college is a festering pit of disease about to explode", condemning my sister to live with our parents for the indefinite future. I liked a tweet "<i>If you're under 25 it's time to start accepting some harsh realities. Your extended adolescence where you prance around Brooklyn making fun of your religious family is over. You're moving back in with them. Praise Him."</i> Anyway, I lost my keys that day, so karma got me.</div>
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Frustrated at our country's current predicament, I post this infographic by Mona Chalabi, circling South Korea's lovely flat curve saying "shoulda been us":</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9mt0VT3IkJBCVBxyqvnsQlNuSo4v-P11xqYoTbMfQxASz3ZeQ4Y0vFf_wPIkHU2ISq-ESIAbtLNQ0eiztpVB3k3uBU0aYvlL7UmoaTCXcx9ovKoyALolATkWRHRlab4fnluh6P49zfQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-03-27+at+5.32.22+pm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1192" data-original-width="944" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9mt0VT3IkJBCVBxyqvnsQlNuSo4v-P11xqYoTbMfQxASz3ZeQ4Y0vFf_wPIkHU2ISq-ESIAbtLNQ0eiztpVB3k3uBU0aYvlL7UmoaTCXcx9ovKoyALolATkWRHRlab4fnluh6P49zfQ/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-03-27+at+5.32.22+pm.png" width="253" /></a></div>
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Thursday, I redownload TikTok, download a dating app because now boys have no other option but to talk to me, tweet "<i>just ate a whole block of Brie and Margot Robbie has the audacity to walk across my tv screen in a bikini. Feels like shit.</i>" and repost an Instagram post from Jhene Aiko:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin0PMB1NRMNXck8XULjEAZjGS7IyxtIBwMY-WD2pN-RaOyIMOBCEtsCl2-dS4jM-dqW7pjQPVwAU7l0ZJr6iJa57sjL6Yq7BLgPYouId3nIMcxIxt2G7D8xDzkGN81KPs41B6wZJTkZg/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-03-27+at+5.38.00+pm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1102" data-original-width="1148" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin0PMB1NRMNXck8XULjEAZjGS7IyxtIBwMY-WD2pN-RaOyIMOBCEtsCl2-dS4jM-dqW7pjQPVwAU7l0ZJr6iJa57sjL6Yq7BLgPYouId3nIMcxIxt2G7D8xDzkGN81KPs41B6wZJTkZg/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-03-27+at+5.38.00+pm.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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My dad replies "scary thing is there is a small chance that this may be true." to which I have the fleeting thought, "Duh. Aliens are real."</div>
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In another condemnable effort to social isolate, I invite a friend over for takeaway brunch where we gossip and film a TikTok. When he leaves, the gossip he shared - reputations, stories, personalities - are swimming through my head and I really must open my diary. Inside I see pages and pages of entries from the past few days, and I write, "social distancing has resulted in too much time for me to overanalyse every little experience and habitually write about it. I guess the next five months are going to be thoroughly documented, hey."</div>
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Afterwards my roommate and I are driving alongside the empty shops and the sky is so so blue. The radio has played songs that I've felt like dancing to the entire drive and I say, "You know, this quarantine thing isn't so bad." She replies reminding me that we haven't really been in quarantine.</div>
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Walking back from my jog around the park today, the bus to the hospital in the city passes me. It's the bus I would've taken to the placement I was so excited to start as of next week. It's the bus that would've taken me to all my expectations for 2020, but that's all different now. I guess life just takes us in unpredictable directions, and while we don't get what we asked for, often what actually happens is better anyway.</div>
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I liked a tweet "<i>a pandemic isn't a writing retreat lol</i>"</div>
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Another quarantine question in that Man Repeller article was "<i>What is my password to Wordpress?</i>"</div>
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That's my headspace writing this right now.</div>
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Love,</div>
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M</div>
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<br />Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-55355182827687542182020-02-01T15:26:00.000+11:002020-04-11T17:32:52.922+10:00Floating (scenes from today)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOQlA4XQNWgT7eKpr0nADYnSOltmuP2s_ADDq1ERdJ_5zPrRX2sOZIdHwA78DqoCVj01l3abNxbAMuOpkVFqEODvjOB5X9HE1MVVn1TP9UrCSPhJy-yYUlBU_t9ue4aR6CM0fDwuWDdw/s1600/92548506_247812389602209_8955136752100573184_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="750" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOQlA4XQNWgT7eKpr0nADYnSOltmuP2s_ADDq1ERdJ_5zPrRX2sOZIdHwA78DqoCVj01l3abNxbAMuOpkVFqEODvjOB5X9HE1MVVn1TP9UrCSPhJy-yYUlBU_t9ue4aR6CM0fDwuWDdw/s400/92548506_247812389602209_8955136752100573184_n.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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I sat at the front of the bus - where I can see through the big front window and the side window, the road unblocked in front of me. I sat my bag on the seat next to me and sent a photo to a friend I haven’t talked to in months, sporadically (inside joke). He’s messaging me now, but my muddled brain isn’t replying with much sense.<br />
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I woke up very hot on top of the pristine white sheets I washed in my jetlagged daze yesterday. I don’t like the light that comes through my blinds - it was directed straight at my face, but I continued to just lie there and brought my hands up over my eyes. Eventually I stood up and somehow took an hour to get ready for absolutely nothing; cute but incredibly short gingham dress, makeup a little too heavy for the summer but still just right, hair frizzy from the humidity - I walked 20 minutes to the chemist and back, and still managed to realise I forgot an item.</div>
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I sit here recalling a paragraph in a book I read, in which the girl describes sometimes imagining that she is so smart that her brain takes her to a completely different plane above everyone else - like an explosion of some kind. </div>
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It’s so hot outside that I took off my dress and lay there on my bed, watching videos from a friend about the wildlife lounging around her pool today. She asks me what I’m doing tonight but I tell her I’m getting on the bus and she calls me a loser. </div>
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The bus has stopped at the airport and a line of people wearing surgical masks are outside waiting to get on. A fear of catching the virus crosses my mind, which brings me to think of the anti-racist Facebook posts my university peers have been posting. The first man to die from the virus in Australia was not killed by the virus, but by ambulance workers too afraid to perform resuscitation. I decide to not be afraid and remove my bag from the seat next to me. At the worst I will be quarantined for 14 days in my own home, and that doesn’t sound so bad.</div>
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I wrote in my diary that just because I look good doesn’t mean I have to take pictures of it. I wrote in my diary: “Now I understood the thing I’d overlooked; the point wasn’t to become a geisha, but to <i>be </i>a geisha.” - Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden. You see, I feel like to project a fantasy is great, but to come close to embodying that fantasy, that’s something else. I want to be that floating girl, prettily floating untouchable alongside everybody else. She can laugh and seem real and obtainable, but she leaves shrouding you in uncertainty, wanting more. </div>
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Nobody sat in the seat next to me even though half the people are still lining up outside. My little corner is always overlooked by the driver, ushers and people, so my bag gets a seat after all.</div>
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Love,</div>
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M</div>
Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-3227103013393506982019-10-21T17:22:00.000+11:002020-04-11T16:05:20.775+10:00Subtle Racism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWBeg3L-43OOLFkUyi8ns_A_-MuKsIRGxYJN8ldh8pIG5p6D5xoRDKMbKXpBH-VSkXrT58_jGd1KPoZiMI3CUC6nbkaHgUjYrE5YMEeKrRLhKI9py2E0rMtWZI7HTjxee3lIPy3aPnYA/s1600/93315088_225143862236737_2638507381843034112_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="750" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWBeg3L-43OOLFkUyi8ns_A_-MuKsIRGxYJN8ldh8pIG5p6D5xoRDKMbKXpBH-VSkXrT58_jGd1KPoZiMI3CUC6nbkaHgUjYrE5YMEeKrRLhKI9py2E0rMtWZI7HTjxee3lIPy3aPnYA/s400/93315088_225143862236737_2638507381843034112_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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A few weeks ago this pretentious small Asian girl posted a video titled '<i>subtle racism</i>' on her Instagram story. Of course I watched: racially diverse person after person, providing anecdotes about their experience in this predominantly caucasian country, looking for something, anything, a statement, that would jump out at me with a world-changing relatability -- but it was nothing I hadn't heard before. Next slide. "Don't ask me where I'm from," she begins. Black background, white words. Next slide. The paragraph continues.<br />
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Don't get me wrong, in no way am I trying to illegitimise people's racial experience. However, all these little stories, honestly, they don't bother me that much. I find that today's generation is generally accepting of other races. Gone is my parents' time, when hearing "Go back to where you came from" was not uncommon on the streets. Neither myself nor the people I have grown up around have ever questioned whether I belong in this country or not. Of course I do. I can tell that small, unpolitically correct statements regarding my ethnicity have nothing to do with ignorant or malicious intentions.<br />
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When I talk about <i>subtle racism</i>, I'm talking about the experience of this generation. I'm talking about the way stereotypes have manifested to become another sucky nuance of our ingrained views, resting alongside the likes of gender roles and beauty standards. Nobody talks honestly and openly about the current experience because they're not the words we've heard and seen over and over again before. Firstly, a description of racism today requires critical thought and subsequent social commentary; and secondly, I think the book I'm reading, '<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americanah">Americanah</a>' has an important point: the general caucasian, or otherwise, population here doesn't want to hear the honest experience. They want us to preach to the converted what they already know. My honest thoughts could come across as entitled or unreasonably angry.<br />
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I wrote all this in my diary a few days ago. For the last few days I've been writing about spiralling emotions, being stuck in my own head, feeling bitter without knowing why. And suddenly, <i>after having a chat to her about it, I've come to the conclusion that all my emotions have boiled down to SUBTLE RACISM... Do you know what subtle racism is?</i><br />
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My friends are gorgeous, in the most classic hot girl way imaginable. They have the super power of being skinny, blonde and tan. Over dinner drinking games, without speaking a word, they can be voted 'person I would most like to get to know better'. Step into an elevator, without speaking a word, and the small metal box of people will immediately make an effort to impress them. Arrive at a party, without speaking a word, and they will be offered invites and opportunities based on the stereotype that as a skinny, blonde and tan girl, <i>surely </i>they must be fun. <br />
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I am a small Asian girl. Over dinner drinking games, if I don't speak a word, I will be quiet and unnoticed. Step into an elevator, if I don't speak a word, I will either be ignored or given one-word careless small talk. Arrive at a party, if I don't speak a word, I will again, be quiet and unnoticed. Subtle racism is the fact that I must work five times harder at having a super interesting personality in order to be considered somebody worthy of getting to know. I used to tell myself to effortlessly let people approach me, but the reality of the situation is that my societal stereotype start line is miles behind, and I need to run to catch up. In case you couldn't tell, I'm bitter.<br />
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I have this close friend. She's small. She's ethnically ambiguous. She has dark hair. We're very different people. I've been called her name by two different caucasian boys on two different occasions, both of whom I am on a friendly basis with. Both occurrences were honest mistakes. Both occurrences were not a big deal. Both occurrences made me feel like absolute shit. They made me feel like I am not an individual who matters. No matter what I say, what defining individual characteristics I put forwards, perhaps my being is being added to some conglomerate of small, dark haired, Asian girls, going right over Caucasian boys' heads. Is this how society sees me? In case you couldn't tell, I'm bitter.<br />
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Perhaps these thoughts, or discoveries, have come from the recent close friendships I have developed with a different crowd of people. In Sydney there are certain Asian-dominated communities: particular suburbs, particular schools, particular university degrees - to the point where some of my Asian friends have spent their entire lives in this country as part of a majority. What an interesting social experiment.<br />
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As I spend more time around these groups of people, my perceptions of the norm are slowly shifting to somewhere in between; or perhaps somewhere <i>neither</i>. My beauty standards are different now. The characteristics that impress me are different now. While I appreciate that my skinny, blonde and tan friends are pretty in their own way, perhaps it is narcissism that I consider some of my small, dark-haired, Asian friends to be gorgeous. But again, that's just physical appearances, and it sucks how evident pretty privilege is in this society, but that's another topic altogether.<br />
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Upon spending more time around my own minority, particularly the boys, I have the thought, <i>oh. So this is what it's like to be noticed as a regular girl, without all those connotations attached</i>.<i> This is what my skinny, blonde and tan friends feel when a cute boy eyes them from across the room.</i> We've all seen <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B2rTmgyFsbC/">Asian girls screenshot their tinder messages</a>, but now imagine these situations in person - less vulgar, more nuanced, and still making you feel like a fetish rather than somebody beautiful in their own right. Try hearing the statements "I would never date an Asian." from your reasonably attractive guy friend, or "I think you'd have to be a weird person to like someone like that" from your other reasonably attractive guy friend, referring to a photo of an LG or an ABG.<br />
I like the way I look, and this saddens me.<br />
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I then finished my diary entry with <i>but perhaps I'm just hanging out in the wrong environment</i>.<br />
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Society is whack, and in case you couldn't tell, I'm bitter.<br />
<br />
Love,<br />
M<br />
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<br />Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6699385733480282081.post-72287219260539634352019-09-03T18:07:00.004+10:002020-04-11T18:38:10.706+10:00On Vulnerability<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve always understood <b>power </b>to be the most sought out trait. The word is synonymous with strength, respect and worth as a human being. However, what I’ve come to realise is that power does not garner love or deep emotional connections. In fact, power can be lonely and sad. To be powerful involves appearing with no weaknesses, and as a result, possessing an unmonitored shame towards that which you are hiding. I recently read an article in an online university magazine, stating:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Brene Brown describes shame as playing two lines in our heads: “Never good enough” and “Who do you think you are?”. They tell us to doubt ourselves. Shame makes us uncertain and it stops us from taking risks… The way out of shame? Vulnerability.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As I lie there questioning my closeness with those around me, I mindfully comment that I have always put up a front. Throughout high school, the shame of wanting <i>something </i>desperately, whether it be a certain confidence, or a reputation, or to not be anxious to talk to people, would result in a pretence that I already possessed all these traits. It was a thinly veiled attempt to fool my parents, my friends and myself into thinking that everything about myself was as I thought the status quo to be. I’ve admired strong characters all my life, and my way of being one was to lie away all the things I am ashamed of. Strong characters are always put together with no imperfections, right?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yesterday my sister and my mother were having an argument. She complained that she did not want to, and would not, ask a girl in her class for a minor favour. Her fear of social awkwardness was laid clearly on the table in front of her. She had no shame and no reservations. My inherently judgmental personality would of course be harsh towards myself if I were to expose such discomfort, but when my sister nonchalantly revealed her feelings, I really couldn’t have been more indifferent. It’s as the shame wizard from <i>Big Mouth </i>taunts each kid at the school sleepover. Inside their heads, the shame progresses into a powerful, self-hating force of denial. Yet, if one kid were to be frank about their feelings, the others would probably feel a sense of relatability. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The normalisation of these feelings within our heads would lead to an accelerated self-growth I wish I’d had. In 2011 I watched <i>Glee </i>for the first time and found that the show made me uncomfortable. The star of the show was annoying and self-obsessed. The popular cheerleader was pregnant. This was not your regular Hollywood teen television. The same thing happened with <i>The Perks of Being a Wallflower</i>. Why was Emma Watson so sad, and why did she have short hair? <i>Normal people </i>don’t act like this. Normal people are shiny and blonde like Kirsten Dunst from <i>Bring it On</i>. Older now, I am a huge fan of both <i>Glee </i>and <i>The Perks of Being a Wallflower</i>, perhaps because their supposed quirkiness brings forward a truth about the way we feel. They allow us to feel like any absurd thought we possess is in actuality okay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This acceptance, both within society and the individual, should enable us to peel back this deceitful protective layer. In recent years I have pride myself on transparency. However, it’s like Lorde says, <i>Let’s let things come out of the woodwork / I’ll give you my best side, tell you all my best lies / Yeah, awesome right?</i>. While I somehow truly believe I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve, in reality those things that bring me shame are still hiding deep within. I guess addressing that those ‘weird’ thoughts are actually okay is easier said than done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">However, is showing your best side really all that deceitful? Is being vulnerable all that necessary? I’ve been grappling at the idea of a public versus private life, of mystery and maintaining a persona. Over brunch today, my friend described how we are all too concerned about the projection of ourselves on other people. Perhaps this brand we are demonstrating to the public is more effective and respectable with blocked out weaknesses and vulnerabilities. But where and when does this brand get replaced by the genuine truth in order to form close relationships?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I watched a video entitled <i>Why you will marry the wrong person </i>in which the psychologist states that when we say, ‘I love you’ what we are really saying is ‘I need you’. We are putting ourselves in a vulnerable position. He goes on to describe how your typical type A personality would respond to this scary feeling by almost saying and acting the opposite. When we begin to feel vulnerable, we become avoidant, we begin to nag, and we act as if we don’t need them when we wish we could say the contrary. This results in them questioning the relationship, leading to a cycle of low trust. If you are unable to acknowledge and understand all your own vulnerable thoughts and feelings, then how can you expect to have someone truly love you for who you are?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Additionally, honesty is attractive, and shame is not. When asked about something I am insecure about, I find myself avoiding answering the question. Sometimes I want the projection of myself to be something else so badly that I mimic the ‘strong’ self I wish I was. After these incidences, I can’t help but see how two dimensional and flimsy each small dishonesty was. Years later in hindsight, I see that if I had demonstrated the genuine self I was ashamed to be, that would have been <b>stronger </b>and surer. That would have drawn the correct people. That would have allowed people to understand my emotions, and potentially acknowledge the likeness of their own. Ultimately, laying my vulnerable self on the table would have, and will always, lead to the most meaningful encounters. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">While we may subconsciously grow up daydreaming about the validation of receiving that trophy with the respect of all those standing below us, as we get older, we begin to realise this isn’t enough. All the self-help books and the fairy-tale movies tell us we want love, family and ultimately to be understood. However, bad habits of hidden insecurities are difficult to break. In my opinion, if we acknowledge what we are ashamed of and unabashedly bear ourselves, all hidden grievances will become non-existent. Our burdens will be shared and understood by others. Ultimately, the truth will set you free, so why not lay every single truth out there and just… be. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Love,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">M</span></div>
Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03487894789971938605noreply@blogger.com0