so I went with sarah M. to her interview in moorgate, and I had to be there for 8.30 but I reached there at 8.50. Then we got there for 9.45, but the interview was on at 10.45, and sarah got in at 10.30. we walked around in the meantime. After sarah went in I wanted to look for a toilet but I didn't find it and had £2 banoffee pie and then went to a macdonald's and had a sausage and egg mcmuffin but before that I went to pee. Then I went to find a hsbc to deposit the apt money, and then I bought lina's card. Which I have to send. TOMORROW. (spoiler alert: it's 20 Aug and I still haven't sent it.)
Afterwards I got missed calls from sarah and she'd finished the interview and left. Then I took the tube from moorgate to london bridge, and the train from london bridge to new cross, and got to a house viewing on amersham grove for 1pm. The landlady/ person showing me around had a mainland chinese accent. And uh I think that's why she wanted me to take the room. But I'm not taking it, it's too crappy for the price. Then I went to the library to use the internet and check on houses, made an appointment to see a house at 5pm. I napped in the library for a while.
Then I went to see the house at 5, another mainland chinese lady who says she prefers me because I'm asian. It's a really big house, everything in it is new, but it's far away from shops and things. Then 6.30 I went for another house viewing, which really made my day because the landlady asked if I had a boyfriend, there was a pause, then asked if I had a girlfriend. non-heteronormativity ftw!! So I was very happy afterward. I took the train, then tube back to my hostel, and got takeaway veggie lasagna. Then I spent more time on the internet and talked a while to my new roommate Ray. Who liked to talk a lot, I really wanted to sleep, but he kept talking. I fell asleep mid-conversation anyway.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Sunday, June 23, 2013
I'm really pumped for summer and I'm excited to be alive right now. I'm happy to be alive. It's pretty sweet. I'm so excited to go adventuring again, and it's going to be my first time staying in a hostel, and backpacking. Well it's just for 10 days, but maybe this time I'll learn some things and next time I'll buy a better backpack and go for months. I'm excited to go to KL alone, when I usually go with school or family.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
seeing self-harm scars.
*blows the dust off this blog*
It's been a while since I last wrote.
Anyway here's a thing that I want to write about that is perhaps too long for twitter.
--trigger warning---
I work at a gay dance club now, part-time, and I stamp people's arms at the door. I have to insist that it's the left arm, on the forearm, so that the bouncer can check the same place every time. Also they think that sweat might rub it off if I stamp on the wrist or palm. I see many forearms with many horizontal scars on them, that look like self-harm scars. Sometimes you know they're self-harm scars because people are reluctant to roll up their sleeves to get stamped, or they put their arm away quickly after you've stamped them. It's kind of sad and strange and odd. I don't want to pity them, but it's sad that self-harm occurs so often amongst queer people. Maybe people who go to dance clubs alone are a little sad. Although. There isn't a control group to look at the frequency of self-harm scars occurring in people who go to straight clubs, so I can't say that self-harm on wrists occurs more often amongst queer people.
It's just interesting. And odd? That one of the first times I saw self-harm scars was in a queer pub in london. I didn't want to be impolite, but it was triggering for me. I didn't want to look at it because it reminded me of my own self-harming, and I might have had a disgusted look on my face. I don't think self-harm scars are disgusting; it's just a bit scary for me. They remind me of what I've done before, and I have mixed emotions toward it. It's also scary because it looks so painful. I didn't know how to react the first time I saw them on another person, because it was so obvious what they were, and I was trying to forget that I self-harmed, or put it as far into my past as possible, because at that time I had only been a few months clean.
Self-harm scars are beautiful, in their own way. Not that I'm glamorizing the act that produced them, but the fact that the person is okay enough with themselves to wear short sleeves is beautiful. It seems to me that they are accepting that part of themselves and their past and they are not afraid for people to see what they have done. They accept that their brokenness is part of themselves, and it doesn't make them any less of a person. They are confident enough not to have to hide their scars anymore. That is my interpretation at least, and the fact that the person is wearing short sleeves might just be because they're tired of feeling too hot in the summer.
Another reaction is that I don't feel so alone in my self-harming anymore. I think that fact might have been more helpful when I was 14 or so, but it's still relevant to me now, though not as much. Not that self-harming is an activity to be celebrated by any means, it's just that when you're 14 and self-harming, you think that you're the strangest, most broken thing in the universe. You don't know that it's a "thing", that other people do it, that it sometimes it's a legitimate reaction to stress or trauma. You just know that you do it, and it makes you weird and sad and abnormal. I treated it as a secret that no one should know, and that it made me damaged, in some way. Seeing evidence of other people self-harming makes me think that I'm not the only broken person in the world, and that it is okay to have self-harmed. I don't feel so abnormal; I have baggage, just like everyone else. I don't have to be ashamed that I have self-harmed, and I don't have to treat it as this thing that I have to declare to people I want to have close friendships with. It's not something I have to confess. It just is.
As I said, I still don't know what to feel about my self-harming. Some part of me is still proud of my scars; "here, see, I have acquired them in battle and therefore I am tough" but I know that it's not a thing to be celebrated. But then again my scars are so tiny and indistinct that I have to point them out, so they aren't really things I can show off. I'm embarrassed that I self-harmed, and that I had to resort to doing it. I used to be angry at myself for being "weak" and for having to self-harm. But another part accepts that this is who I was, and it makes me who I am. It happened, they exist, and they won't go away. I'm trying not to self-harm again. It's easier now that I haven't done it in a while.
My reaction to seeing self-harm scars is a little complicated, but it becomes normal and everyday when you have to stamp many arms every night. It's work. It's business. That's how I'd like the rest of the world to treat self-harm scars.
It's been a while since I last wrote.
Anyway here's a thing that I want to write about that is perhaps too long for twitter.
--trigger warning---
I work at a gay dance club now, part-time, and I stamp people's arms at the door. I have to insist that it's the left arm, on the forearm, so that the bouncer can check the same place every time. Also they think that sweat might rub it off if I stamp on the wrist or palm. I see many forearms with many horizontal scars on them, that look like self-harm scars. Sometimes you know they're self-harm scars because people are reluctant to roll up their sleeves to get stamped, or they put their arm away quickly after you've stamped them. It's kind of sad and strange and odd. I don't want to pity them, but it's sad that self-harm occurs so often amongst queer people. Maybe people who go to dance clubs alone are a little sad. Although. There isn't a control group to look at the frequency of self-harm scars occurring in people who go to straight clubs, so I can't say that self-harm on wrists occurs more often amongst queer people.
It's just interesting. And odd? That one of the first times I saw self-harm scars was in a queer pub in london. I didn't want to be impolite, but it was triggering for me. I didn't want to look at it because it reminded me of my own self-harming, and I might have had a disgusted look on my face. I don't think self-harm scars are disgusting; it's just a bit scary for me. They remind me of what I've done before, and I have mixed emotions toward it. It's also scary because it looks so painful. I didn't know how to react the first time I saw them on another person, because it was so obvious what they were, and I was trying to forget that I self-harmed, or put it as far into my past as possible, because at that time I had only been a few months clean.
Self-harm scars are beautiful, in their own way. Not that I'm glamorizing the act that produced them, but the fact that the person is okay enough with themselves to wear short sleeves is beautiful. It seems to me that they are accepting that part of themselves and their past and they are not afraid for people to see what they have done. They accept that their brokenness is part of themselves, and it doesn't make them any less of a person. They are confident enough not to have to hide their scars anymore. That is my interpretation at least, and the fact that the person is wearing short sleeves might just be because they're tired of feeling too hot in the summer.
Another reaction is that I don't feel so alone in my self-harming anymore. I think that fact might have been more helpful when I was 14 or so, but it's still relevant to me now, though not as much. Not that self-harming is an activity to be celebrated by any means, it's just that when you're 14 and self-harming, you think that you're the strangest, most broken thing in the universe. You don't know that it's a "thing", that other people do it, that it sometimes it's a legitimate reaction to stress or trauma. You just know that you do it, and it makes you weird and sad and abnormal. I treated it as a secret that no one should know, and that it made me damaged, in some way. Seeing evidence of other people self-harming makes me think that I'm not the only broken person in the world, and that it is okay to have self-harmed. I don't feel so abnormal; I have baggage, just like everyone else. I don't have to be ashamed that I have self-harmed, and I don't have to treat it as this thing that I have to declare to people I want to have close friendships with. It's not something I have to confess. It just is.
As I said, I still don't know what to feel about my self-harming. Some part of me is still proud of my scars; "here, see, I have acquired them in battle and therefore I am tough" but I know that it's not a thing to be celebrated. But then again my scars are so tiny and indistinct that I have to point them out, so they aren't really things I can show off. I'm embarrassed that I self-harmed, and that I had to resort to doing it. I used to be angry at myself for being "weak" and for having to self-harm. But another part accepts that this is who I was, and it makes me who I am. It happened, they exist, and they won't go away. I'm trying not to self-harm again. It's easier now that I haven't done it in a while.
My reaction to seeing self-harm scars is a little complicated, but it becomes normal and everyday when you have to stamp many arms every night. It's work. It's business. That's how I'd like the rest of the world to treat self-harm scars.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
tegan and sara's new album.
Tegan and Sara recently did an interview in The Guardian, and the journalist's main argument is that Heartthrob is more "accessible" than their other albums. It definitely sounds more mainstream and more 'pop' than their previous work, from what's currently available on Soundcloud.
They also say they're venturing into new territory with this new album, lyric-wise. "Here comes the heat before we meet" and "all I want to get is... a little bit closer" are atypical for Tegan and Sara; they admit that their music usually has a darker tone. Not that it's bad news for fangirls. Who wouldn't want Tegan looking into their eyes and crooning at them, in the music video for Closer? The lighter side of their personality, which one only sees during their live shows, is displayed in this video. In my opinion, it's wonderful. It's fluff for sure, but wonderful. This music video specifically, shows a larger variety of gender presentations than most mainstream music videos. I love it because it looks like a real party that I would go to, with people of color and people who don't all dress the same. As a young person, I'm fully in support of its efforts at queer visibility. Closer is catchy and pop-sounding, and, bonus points, is made by lesbians!
The point I'm getting to is that I don't mind Tegan and Sara becoming more mainstream, if it will get them played on the radio and more people to watch their music video. Admittedly, T&S is more than mainstream in some queer circles, to the point where people think it's overrated and they pass it on for more indie bands. Like the L Word, Tegan and Sara is used as a conversation starter when one lesbian meets another. Everyone knows them and it's not cool to get excited about them anymore. There are tons of other bands with lesbians in them now, who aren't as big as Tegan and Sara. They are the ones who need more people listening to their music, not a band which is fairly established. But in places like Singapore, it's hard to get radio DJs to be less sexist, much less less heteronormative. A song like Closer, played on the radio, might get the dialogue started about queer musicians, and get DJs to play music by queer bands.
One could only hope. There isn't much room for alternative or indie english music on Singapore airwaves. Queer bands such as Girl in a Coma or Sick of Sarah definitely fall under the label of 'indie'. In London there are stations like Xfm, and 6Music which play a large proportion of local music from East London, or alternative music, and these stations are available on public radio. They're not internet-only radio shows; they're actual radio stations. I was so surprised. One of the few things in Singapore which comes remotely close to this is Lush 99.5, which plays jazz and easy listening stuff. Despite there being a demand for non-mainstream music-- the Laneway festival, featuring Alt-J and Of Monsters and Men, among others, is attracting a large audience-- this music isn't playing on local radio.
Perhaps one could attribute this to the fact that about half of the radio stations are broadcast in non-english languages. There might not be space for a station which plays music which only attracts a niche audience, who probably don't listen to music on the radio anymore, and stream it from their laptops instead. But then again if kpop hour can be scheduled on the 'international' radio station, other stations should be able to respond to listener requests and set aside an hour for alternative music.
In all, I don't mind at all if Tegan and Sara is going in a more mainstream, accessible direction. I personally like it, and I'd like if they got played on Singapore radio. Maybe this might open the door to more music that isn't Austin Mahone or Carly Rae Jepsen.
They also say they're venturing into new territory with this new album, lyric-wise. "Here comes the heat before we meet" and "all I want to get is... a little bit closer" are atypical for Tegan and Sara; they admit that their music usually has a darker tone. Not that it's bad news for fangirls. Who wouldn't want Tegan looking into their eyes and crooning at them, in the music video for Closer? The lighter side of their personality, which one only sees during their live shows, is displayed in this video. In my opinion, it's wonderful. It's fluff for sure, but wonderful. This music video specifically, shows a larger variety of gender presentations than most mainstream music videos. I love it because it looks like a real party that I would go to, with people of color and people who don't all dress the same. As a young person, I'm fully in support of its efforts at queer visibility. Closer is catchy and pop-sounding, and, bonus points, is made by lesbians!
The point I'm getting to is that I don't mind Tegan and Sara becoming more mainstream, if it will get them played on the radio and more people to watch their music video. Admittedly, T&S is more than mainstream in some queer circles, to the point where people think it's overrated and they pass it on for more indie bands. Like the L Word, Tegan and Sara is used as a conversation starter when one lesbian meets another. Everyone knows them and it's not cool to get excited about them anymore. There are tons of other bands with lesbians in them now, who aren't as big as Tegan and Sara. They are the ones who need more people listening to their music, not a band which is fairly established. But in places like Singapore, it's hard to get radio DJs to be less sexist, much less less heteronormative. A song like Closer, played on the radio, might get the dialogue started about queer musicians, and get DJs to play music by queer bands.
One could only hope. There isn't much room for alternative or indie english music on Singapore airwaves. Queer bands such as Girl in a Coma or Sick of Sarah definitely fall under the label of 'indie'. In London there are stations like Xfm, and 6Music which play a large proportion of local music from East London, or alternative music, and these stations are available on public radio. They're not internet-only radio shows; they're actual radio stations. I was so surprised. One of the few things in Singapore which comes remotely close to this is Lush 99.5, which plays jazz and easy listening stuff. Despite there being a demand for non-mainstream music-- the Laneway festival, featuring Alt-J and Of Monsters and Men, among others, is attracting a large audience-- this music isn't playing on local radio.
Perhaps one could attribute this to the fact that about half of the radio stations are broadcast in non-english languages. There might not be space for a station which plays music which only attracts a niche audience, who probably don't listen to music on the radio anymore, and stream it from their laptops instead. But then again if kpop hour can be scheduled on the 'international' radio station, other stations should be able to respond to listener requests and set aside an hour for alternative music.
In all, I don't mind at all if Tegan and Sara is going in a more mainstream, accessible direction. I personally like it, and I'd like if they got played on Singapore radio. Maybe this might open the door to more music that isn't Austin Mahone or Carly Rae Jepsen.
Monday, December 24, 2012
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
2x11
XANDER: You wanna go to the utility closet and make out?
CORDELIA: God, is that all you ever think about? ... okay!
GOLD. Yay, a mainstream tv show that DOESN'T treat female sexuality as something nonexistent.
The Ted thing is kind of scary, and shows how kids might hate stepparents. I mean Ted doesn't even know Buffy properly, and Joyce isn't even on her side, yet he wants to come in and control her life. It's such a change. He's totally imposing on her.
I think buffy has the best friends ever. They are incredible. I love that friendship is a theme in this series because it's IMPORTANT. Cordelia is wonderful. I like the depth given to characters. Like, it's getting GOOD.
CORDELIA: God, is that all you ever think about? ... okay!
GOLD. Yay, a mainstream tv show that DOESN'T treat female sexuality as something nonexistent.
The Ted thing is kind of scary, and shows how kids might hate stepparents. I mean Ted doesn't even know Buffy properly, and Joyce isn't even on her side, yet he wants to come in and control her life. It's such a change. He's totally imposing on her.
I think buffy has the best friends ever. They are incredible. I love that friendship is a theme in this series because it's IMPORTANT. Cordelia is wonderful. I like the depth given to characters. Like, it's getting GOOD.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
buffy watching.
I'm watching buffy. Right from the very beginning!~~
it's all laura and chloe's fault. Also amber benson at leakycon this summer. No big deal.
(I am eternally grateful for laura and chloe for showing me Once More With Feeling and Tabula Rasa right before leaky. It was only after that could I appreciate amber benson's presence.)
It didn't help that lia and kriise, two people off my old collab channel, are appreciative of buffy as well. They keep reblogging buffy on their tumblrs. So I'm watching it. Peer pressure.
Now I'm on 1x02, The Harvest, and ALYSON HANNIGAN I can't. She is wonderful.
and the cuts! The way they cut it is amazing.
and it's so feminist I love it; it makes me happy ^^
it's all laura and chloe's fault. Also amber benson at leakycon this summer. No big deal.
(I am eternally grateful for laura and chloe for showing me Once More With Feeling and Tabula Rasa right before leaky. It was only after that could I appreciate amber benson's presence.)
It didn't help that lia and kriise, two people off my old collab channel, are appreciative of buffy as well. They keep reblogging buffy on their tumblrs. So I'm watching it. Peer pressure.
Now I'm on 1x02, The Harvest, and ALYSON HANNIGAN I can't. She is wonderful.
and the cuts! The way they cut it is amazing.
and it's so feminist I love it; it makes me happy ^^
Friday, November 9, 2012
life modeling and weed.
I did my first gig in sg today; it was very surreptitious.
I don't know how else to articulate my thoughts, but I was thinking that life modeling is legal in the UK, which is great. This means that that demand for life models in London is not that high, and I charge £12.50-£15 per hour if I were to model for a drawing class. There's a "minimum wage" on the life model forum website in the UK; it's part union, part agency, and it's £12.50 per hour for London, so people usually charge that. As a benchmark, the minimum wage in London (it's not the same all over the UK because the living costs in London are higher) is £6.08, and I've been paid £6.50 per hour for a non-modeling job.
So I come back to singapore, and thought that I'd charge about the same that I charge in London, maybe a little bit higher if I can get away with it-- £20 per hour. I'm going to put everything in sterling for convenience; and you can compare rates between the two cities. I did my first life modeling gig today, and it was a photoshoot. The amateur photographer who's paying me tells me that I should charge a higher rate; £75 per hour. I tell him £20 is what I usually charge in London. This person hasn't hired a studio; we're photographing in the open. It feels a little cheap; most previous shoots I've done have been in photography studios, in private. We end up doing the shoot in a stairwell, and there are noises all around, almost as if someone's going to barge in any moment.
MY POINT IS. That if life modeling was legal and regulated in singapore like in the UK, I don't think I would feel bad about what I was doing. It's like legalizing weed. Weed is illegal in Singapore, you get the death penalty, hence demand for weed/ any kind of drug is high and terribly overpriced. Weed is technically illegal in London, but people still smoke it and there are ways of getting it, someone told me it was £10 for 5 sticks, correct me if I'm wrong.
Life modeling isn't regulated here, you don't sign any release forms, there's no minimum wage, so demand is extremely high and pushes the going rate to £75. For comparison, you get £2.50 per hour if you work at McDonalds. I got paid £2.75 per hour at my first job, a receptionist gig.
It's a jump from life modeling to weed, but I was looking at how they were legalizing weed in the states of Colorado and Washington, and it was hard for me to understand why. But I realized people are going to smoke weed whether or not it is legal, just like people are going to life model whether or not it is regulated. When it is illegal or unregulated, people think that they need to try harder to obtain it, so that they won't get caught by the authorities. Because of the perceived "work" they need to do to acquire it and to escape detection, the price of the goods increases.
I would like it if life modeling was regulated because then it wouldn't push the going rate so high. It wouldn't feel like an underground, seedy thing where people text you in undecipherable broken english in the middle of the night. I've been asked, "Can touch?" "Can come now?" (at 11.30pm) "Can come after midnight?" "Free now?" "Free later?" I don't know what kind of ridiculous unprofessionalism is this. I keep getting texts, one question per text; I've gotten four texts in a row when I didn't respond in 12 hours. It's annoying and disrespectful. It's not just from one person; it's from all the people who responded to my ad. I answer calls, and the caller sounds drunk and his voice is slurred; I can't make out what he's saying and I have to ask him to repeat multiple times. It's not professional at all, and it's frustrating to deal with the lack of discipline, to say the least.
In London, I put up an ad, people email me, I email back, we decide on a time and date that is sometimes set weeks in advance. The shoot is planned for, and I can put it in my schedule; I don't have to drop things I've planned for a shoot that someone has asked me to do the next day. If I'm lucky, the photographer shows me samples of his work, and I can decide if I want to work with him or not, based on the sleazy-level of his pictures. It all feels very professional and over the table. Sometimes at 6th form colleges I have to sign a book to say that I've been paid, or at other places I give an invoice, and it makes me feel better. The transaction has been recorded in writing; there's no need to cover anything up.
It's a radical argument, but if the borders weren't so heavily policed, maybe less people would die crossing it. Vulnerable asylum seekers would less likely be fleeced by smugglers. If weed or drugs were regulated, less people would get sick because of impure drugs, or overdose by accident. People who need money desperately wouldn't have to risk their safety to become mules and swallow packages of drugs. If the life modeling industry in singapore was more regulated, maybe people would stop treating me like a hooker and stop sending me rude texts, bordering on sexual harassment.
I just feel more uncomfortable life modeling here than in London, even though I can charge more.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
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.
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.
Friday, September 7, 2012
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.
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