what I want to do with my life

So. I'm reading Neil Gaiman's tumblr, where a writer asks for advice on dealing with a rejection letter. He answers with a link to a blogpost he wrote in 2004. He talks about how he knew that he was a writer, and how he decided he was going to be one.

I don't really have an aim for my life. I don't have a definite, concrete answer of being a writer. Someone asked me a while ago, what I wanted to do after I finished my degree. (if I ever finish, that is.)  I said I wanted to fuck around. I don't have a clear idea of what I want to do. I remember I wrote a blogpost 2 years ago which listed out the different possibilities of what I could do after uni. Of course this was dependent on which courses I was accepted to, and I'd applied to major in Environmental / Conservation Biology on my UCAS form in addition to Anthropology. I relied on fate to decide what I would get into, since I couldn't make up my mind. My grades ended up deciding what I would study; I didn't have the marks to get into the BSc courses I'd applied to.

This is sounding very depressing very fast.

I mean 2 years ago I had all these ideas on what I could do, but now, if you asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I'd give you a shorter answer with less options. I still have the "let-fate-decide" philosophy, to a certain extent, because I would rather take what jobs I can get, than be picky and stick to only accepting one kind of job. I'm not looking for permanent, full-time employment yet, though. This is the kind of expectation I think I will have upon graduating.

For context! 2 years ago I thought I could be a filmmaker, or a biologist, or an anthropologist. Now I'm thinking that I'm definitely not becoming a biologist because I don't have the training and I don't have the patience & grades to do the training. I'm definitely not doing a undergrad film degree, because I don't like not having material to make films *about*, and I also like spending more time in school faffing around. Studying, mind you, but talking/ learning/ writing about people and how we came to think about things and the systems we created to organise things. "faffing around" because it feels like a luxury to be able to spend time on anthropological theory, rather than learning skills in film/ technical theatre/ arts management that will make you employable.

I also would like to stick to BA Anthropology, because I feel that it's important for me, as a human being, to be able to understand what it's like to be human in different communities. It's my responsibility to understand, as much as possible, the lives of people who are not like me. I know that I cannot completely assume the identity of someone else or assimilate completely into a cultural group which I am foreign to, but I need to know how they live and the challenges they face, and to learn the skills required to do this. This applies whether I'm studying, say, trans* people, Native American Seminoles, or elderly singaporeans. I think there are many different groups that need a more balanced representation. Also I think it would be cool to do ethnographies in singapore, from a "native anthropologist's" point of view. Or of online communities. idk there isn't much literature on queer people in south east asia specifically; there is stuff on people in taiwan and south asia, but I haven't come across stuff on people in malaysia/ singapore. I digress.

So now, if you asked me what I want to be, I will say that I might do a graduate degree in anthropology. Spending a year at uni has convinced me of that. The other career path I'm leaving options open for is arts management. I've been volunteering at events for a while: the first ever thing I did was writers' fest in Oct 2009, and I've been working other festivals and events since. I like doing it, it makes me happy; so happy that I do it for free. The novelty of doing it is wearing off, but I still feel energized by working events and being busy. I like that I'm part of making something incredible happen. I like being the pragmatic side of the team. I like the atmosphere; there's so many things to do at once sometimes, and things are happening all around you, and you have the power to make things run smoothly.

And the experiences you get from working things like leakycon: priceless. I felt so proud working the starkid event this year, and being part of such an awesome team. Getting the chance to work in a whole different culture (american) yet in a place which feels like home. It's not just that; it was also SWF 09 with amanda palmer and neil gaiman. The friends you make while volunteering! Best friends ever. Seriously. I've found out that theatre people in london REALLY know how to party.

If I don't end up doing either of these things after my degree, I'll probably be in singapore (visa issues) and seeing how long I can last at an entry-level, $6 SGD/h admin job while applying for NAC/ NHB jobs and internships. Or I might do life modeling in sg, not sure how the scene is there. All these while my mum laments at me being at home and wonders aloud why I'm not doing a PHD. (Do you see why it's easier to say that I'll be fucking around because it summarizes what I'll be doing anyway?)

psssh in another two years I might change my mind again. I'll cross the bridge when I get to it.

jealousy, turning saints into the sea

Just let that play, I think. That's what I have in my head right now. I think this is a good way of keeping track of what I'm listening to. Because me and volunteer-colleagues were singing this last night, and I kind of think this is mostly universal. I can't remember when I first heard this song. I must have been 12 or something, after checking Wikipedia.

I'm trying to sleep/ trying to get to sleep. I think I have too many words today. I don't know.
Today I had dinner with my mum/dad/sister, and it was uh crazy. I had to walk out for a while in the beginning, because we were arguing, and my dad said "I don't know what she does for 365 days of the year." which was the last straw for me, because I DO DO THINGS like SCHOOL and PRODUCTION RUNNING and WORK, excuse me. Then towards the end my sister kept on talking about how West Croydon was "unsafe" because there were "black people" there. I don't know what kind of privilege is this, and this wasn't the first time I heard this, and every time I hear this I don't know what to say except to refute it, and it makes me angry every time, and this time I lost it and I told my sister what she was saying was bullshit and my dad got mad at me for swearing.

On googlemaps East Croydon and West Croydon stations are a 15min walk apart from each other. According to my sister, East Croydon station is a perfectly okay station to walk to and take trains from. WEST croydon, however, is "unsafe" and she says "my school says it's not safe" "don't go there, there are a lot of black people" and other bullshit. DO NOT TALK TO ME ABOUT RACE seriously last summer I had this whole hang-up and think about it, I'm supposed to think and read and write about race in class this past year, it bothers me a lot, so I spend a lot of time thinking about it, and about what anthropologists think about it. We talk about it in class a lot, I am obviously part of a yellow minority living in a white-majority city, it's not something I FORGET. this whole black people= crime= will get mugged/raped thing is fucking racist, obviously, and is entirely not true, at least in london.

It's horrible. You don't want to be typecast or stereotyped, don't stereotype another race. Just because you're from singapore and there are hardly ever any black people there, doesn't mean that they are Other. Everyone is human. Not being black myself, I cannot claim to understand what it means to be black in the UK. But I've been living on this street for almost a year, and there are black people living opposite me and down the street. I shop on the high street, where it's 60% black people, say 10% yellow people, 10% indians, 20% white on a market day. There are black people living in my neighbourhood. I am still alive, I haven't been mugged, my uni friends who live in the area haven't been mugged. I have black friends, but I don't think of them as black first, in my head, for example, they are [insert name] first, who plays guitar and likes to dress spiffy and is really into jazz. "black" is in my head when I think of them, and I don't think that one can pretend that race doesn't exist. But it's pure ignorance to say that black= criminal.

I'm also angry because there have been countless times where I have been judged based on my appearance and my race, and I don't want other people to feel judged the same way I have been. Other people have assumed that I speak chinese, drunk people have said random japanese or chinese words to me, said "happy new year" in my face, asked if I'm from china. All these things I find insulting and in the same way that black= criminal, yellow= chinese is a simplistic, untrue equation. This equation just says how stupid the person is, that they don't know that yellow people can speak with american accents or british accents, that yellow people can be from California or Vancouver or Vietnam, not just China. Yellow people can speak English, German, Dutch, Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Melayu, Tagalog, Korean and not all of them speak mandarin chinese.

this is pretty inconclusive but I'm tired now and I'm not meeting my family tomorrow because I would actually go insane and leave the car while at a stop junction or something, and will try to limit family time.