Running On Empty

Time will tell if you can figure this and work it out No one's waiting for you anyway so don't be stressed now Even if it's something that you've had your eye on, it is what it is. 

I suppose this magical composition by Blood Orange is one of the few things I can find solace it. Its lyrics give me comfort even though I hardly heed them.

It's honestly painful to keep on living, dragged on by obligation, duty and responsibility. I feel like I am standing on a precipice, ever-ready to free-fall and let the currents take me and rip my body to shreds. In some ways, it's so much easier that way. You're finally cut loose from all the bullshit and skullduggery that ties you down. Best of all, it'll be the ultimate 'FUCK YOU' to my mother - emblazoned in red if I choose to let rivers of crimson flow from my wrists, or enveloped by the stench of decay if she sees my body in a black zip-up bag.

But I am a coward, I doubt I'll ever do it.

Seeing the counsellor today made me realise my happiness in this world is a superficial one, one that is triggered by titillations and silly happenings that distract me for a fleeting moment. My toxic nuclear family is busy plying the ball, playing weird psychosocial games and acting normal when we are far from it. I suppose we do love each other in this twisted way that oscillates between a sorry excuse for fondness and cold-hard hatred.

We are a trio of hypocrites, cut-throats and hypersensitive idiots. It'd be nice for someone to truly love me and free me from this 21st Century dungeon.

But this is reality, where Prince Charmings on white horses don't exist. I'd probably have to claw my way out from the pits of hell for my liberty.

Just, fuck it all.

Under Your Spell

It's late and my mind is a mess and I end up always wanting what I can't have.

Things would be so much less confusing if you weren't this nice to me.

It's sickening how my life is turning into a cliche.

Maybe it's true that people say there is always a first time for everything.

But why this, of all poisons between the devil and the deep blue sea?

girls, girls, boys

Sometimes I just wonder what led to the unnecessary habit of placing platonic relationships between two people of the opposite sex under a romantic or sexual lens. It seems that in the eyes of society, a man and a woman simply can't be 'best friends' - they have to be soul mates of a romantic nature or worse still, having an affair when one or both of them are romantically or sexually involved with another. I still remember going to eat dessert with a good friend who told me to speak softly while discussing matters about his girlfriend, fearing that the other patrons in the restaurant would view us in a negative light. More recently, another good friend of mine got into an argument with his girlfriend because she was suspicious of me and viewed me as a romantic rival when I was simply texting him about academic matters without any prior knowledge that he was on a date. 

People keep chanting that mantra about how one should ignore what the rest of the world thinks and live for oneself, but it is getting increasingly more difficult to do so once altercations occur. They make things real and tangible and rooted in reality. Honestly, who the hell wants to be indirectly, or even directly, responsible for a break-up? It is true that the actions of Man will result in consequences and ripple effects a higher power is only able to control, and it is because of this biased and archaic view of male-female relations that I normally refrain from physical contact with other gender. Two days ago I met one of my best friends from junior college (who just so happens to be a guy), and as he sent me off at the bus stop, we awkwardly patted each other's back in a sign of solidarity and an indicator of purely platonic affection.Now, I wonder if it would have been more natural for me to have just given him a great big hug instead, screw the judgy public.

Ultimately, the only way for this whole issue to be eradicated is for society to change and become more open-minded. But who am I kidding. This is Singapore, where a storybook about two penguins ends up being placed in the adult section of the library. Not in a million years. 

Unfold

When you have nothing to do, time slips through your fingers like sand and your mind is set adrift. I remember sitting on the coach when I was on holiday, looking at the trees and houses flashing by. There's nothing much you can do on a cross-country drive that lasts several hours at a time, except think about everything.

It's toxic the way things that happened months ago still bother me. Ironically, thinking and doing nothing has somehow inadvertently allowed these terrible emotions and thoughts of mine to be dredged up. My Dad told me he's sick of my whining, and I know that. I'm sick of it myself. I try to vanquish these thoughts away but they end up flooding back whenever my Mum says something horrid and hurtful, unleashing all this negativity within me once more.

It's like a spider within my brain, tapping and prodding me occasionally, when the moment counts.

I'm so frightened, and my parents think I'm a disappointment, so what the fuck do I do now?

"A Bad Asian"

Gosh I realise I haven't updated here in eons but whatever, here it goes.

Last week I attended the South-East Asian premiere of X-Men: Days of Future Past in an unsuccessful bid to see Hugh Jackman and Peter Dinklage, both of whom, own my heart. (Sorry Fan Ice Ice, I'm just not interested in you.) Prior to the attendance of these stars, their less-famous Mediacorp counterparts took to the red-carpet an hour before. As I viewed them (from a highly pixelised and webbed screen) making their rounds, I thought to myself, Who the hell are these people? The only two I could recognise were George Young, because he is easily one of the best looking persons in Singapore's tiny little media industry, as well as Beatrice Chia-Richmond because she staged a local rendition of the play (interestingly titled), Shopping and Fucking. Sadly, I also recognise her because she was also infamously the third party in the failed marriage between two local DJs. (Oops.)

As the emcee of the night (the perennially youthful Utt) announced their names, one could tell the reception from the audience was lukewarm and after trawling through Twitter feeds, I could see I was not the only one who didn't know half the people on the 'blue carpet'. And this got me thinking.

Am I a bad Asian for being so disinterested in the local media and entertainment industry? Judging from what I know about other Asian countries (e.g Thailand, Malaysia, China etc.), their support for their native stars is much more ardent and enthusiastic compared to that of Singapore's. Or should I simply blame my lack of interest on the supposed dearth of local talent? Or is it that our local stars simply do not have the 'X-Factor'? Perhaps is it just a skewed perception I have, that all local productions are inferior to foreign ones?

Until the day Mediacorp can produce a show in the line of Game of Thrones, I suppose I am, sadly, right.

7 Things I've Learned at Work

It's been 7 days since my job (at a yet-to-be-named government firm) ended, and I thought it would nice to be share what I have learned during this perilous and often unpleasant journey.

1. It is impossible to be your 'true self' in the office.

When I first read 'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens, I initially found the character of Wemmick highly comical and unrealistic. He was someone who acted like a stone-cold bitch at work, and only showed his inner Mother Theresa within the privacy of his own quarters. Wemmick's explanation to Pip (the protagonist of the novel) regarding his unorthodox behaviour was that it was his means of survival. After 3 months of work at that sordid office, I can't agree more with dearest Wemmick.

How you act in the office is basically a projection of how you want your superiors to view you. Unlike Wemmick however, you are nicer than usual, more accommodating, less irritable and the list goes on and on. You are essentially as perfect as you can portray yourself to be.

(In the defence of Wemmick, he had to deal with many criminals and obviously couldn't be kind and compassionate while performing illegal duties.)

Take myself for example. If you are someone close to me, you know that the real me swears like a sailor and speaks candidly about most things. That 'version' of me does not exist within the confines of an office. It has been replaced by an odd doppelgänger who at most says "shit" instead of "fuck", is largely diplomatic and polite to a fault. Friends would laugh upon seeing this version of me. What am I to supposed to do when vulgarity is often assumed to be a mark of incompetence and stupidity? What am I to do when disagreeing with your boss might get you skewered alive?

Hence, this 'false identity' is thereby created out of compulsion, which brings me to my second point.

2. Your mask is your greatest weapon.

By creating this false persona, you offend no one and as such you do not give anyone any reason to pick a bone with you. Furthermore, by never revealing your innermost thoughts about your superiors, no one can use such information against you. As a cordial/warm/friendly individual who everyone loves, you can hide in plain sight - no one will know your real motives, because they think you're already being honest and open and genuine with them!

3. If someone does something bad to you, record it down immediately.

Sadly, every office comes with a Queen Bitch and a King Dick. It isn't going to be all smooth-sailing. But fear not! Although there may not be ways to circumvent the fuckery, there are defence measures you can undertake. No matter how unjustified, always keep your cool so that you will perennially be the level-headed and rational one in the 'discussion' or argument. Being understanding always gives you the upper hand. After you've 'settled' the beef, record the altercation down somewhere, as accurately and as cogently as possible. A fucker is likely to fuck with you again, so repeat the process if needed. Collect an entire word document's worth of his/her bullshit, and when the opportune moment comes? Release the information to the world and justice shall be served on a silver platter.

4. If you sadly have to work over time at home, tell your superiors right-away.

This way, you will be fully compensated for your hard work and additional duties. This way, the full number of hours of additional work can be proven precisely! If you only inform of them of your extraneous duties at the end of the tenure, employers would be extremely unwilling to help you or would give you a half-hearted compensation.

In my case it wasn't even half-hearted, it was tenth-hearted. Hooray for child labour, it makes the world go round.

5. Search for interesting lunch options and find a lunch buddy.

I am not going to lie - office mornings are extremely dreary. When the lunch hour comes I can smell the excitement in the air, because it means a precious one to two hours of liberation. Therefore, you should use this magic hour well. Do not squander it on buying the same food every other day, unless you are truly a boring creature of habit. Try new stalls, try new food and these new experiences are likely to brighten up your day.

They say joy is meant to be shared, so find a foodie with similar tastes to come along with you. I believe that good conversation coupled with good food is a slice of heaven, and is something most decent folks deserve.

In the words of tumblr, TREAT YO'SELF.

6. Technology is your best friend.

This point is especially true for people in temporary jobs that involve simple and fucking mundane administrative tasks such as photocopying and spam sending emails. While waiting for 10,000 copies of the same document to be printed, just whip out your phone and be entertained immediately. Go have a laugh on tumblr, admire pretty pictures on Instagram or even better, talk to your friends who are working as well! There is nothing more compelling than shared misery and you can give one another the camaraderie we all need for the day.

7. Don't be an ass.

I know to some this might contradict the first point, because isn't one already being an asshole by being 'fake'? Well, I personally believe that acting differently from usual is a survival instinct and can be excused. Honesty may not be the best policy, and in fact might get you into deep trouble, a la Ned Stark in Game of Thrones. What I mean here is that one should not jeopardise colleagues who have not offended you in any way, or be unhelpful when they are blatantly seeking the aid of others. From my experience, people in the office who are socially unaware and selfish made my day worse and I hated them with great vitriol. So yes, don't be an ass!

crime & punishment

As much as I want to, I don't think I will ever be able to accept my shitty, less-than-stellar A level results.

With university applications currently eating up most of my free time, I have no choice but to stare at that whitish-pink certificate often, with its never-changing alphabets haunting me in the days that follow.

My mother's perennial chattering about how I will "never reach my full potential" isn't exactly a big bonus either, and it just withholds me from moving on.

Every time I see that fucking certificate I feel like my chest has been hollowed out.

Yes yes, you may call me 'overdramatic' and try to reassure me that "grades aren't everything" but guess what? In conservative, grades-driven, stressful Singapore, a combination of 6 letters do define your life! Now I find myself worrying if I can even make it to the course of my choice, with the grade point indicators burned into the walls of my memory.

I believe I wouldn't be so bitter about my results if I sucked at English. The other day, someone who received an A for GP informed me that she didn't know who Ernest Hemingway was, and prior to that day was wholly unaware of his existence. And just last week I helped another friend who also attained an A for GP edit her personal statement, which had several jarring grammatical errors. [Note: This is not to vilify my friend, but simply to illustrate a point.]

Now I truly understand what people mean when a grade might not truly reflect one's ability. Every time I look at my 'B's for GP and literature, I can almost hear the gods laughing at me - the poor mortal, a mere plaything in their hands.

Gather round boys and girls, and look at stupid Shu Hui! This is the idiot who receives crummy grades for English, despite her love for the Beats, her enjoyment of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytical theories and her admiration of Descartes' genius!

I think the worst part of my whole predicament is convincing my future employers that my command of the English language supersedes the grade I got. Goodness gracious, I can already imagine the looks of condescension, the sneers and the disbelieving chime of "Is that so?".

I want to let go, but I'll never be able to.

la vie en rose

I suppose sadness, disappointment and frustration altogether when combined in a horrendous whirlpool of discontent is both drowning and overwhelming. My A level results are objectively fine but in my opinion far from perfect.

It pisses me off how subjects that I had performed consistently in and worked hard for let me down at such a critical moment. It pisses me off even more that English, which has been my strongest subject since I was in primary one, is the fatal fetter that drags me down into the Tartarus of regret and dismay. But hold it ladies and gentlemen, I haven't revealed the final punchline yet! I guess Life loves to mock me and toy with me, because it has bestowed upon me an 'A' for math, my weakest subject!

I can almost hear the cherubim laughing at my woes, how pleasant.

Right now, I can only think of these few situations that have probably led to my downfall: 1) I didn't get enough sleep for the GP essay paper and hence wrote rubbish, 2) I wrote too long for the GP essay and my examples were lacking for some points, 3) Some of my literature essays sucked so much that Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Edith Wharton, William Shakespeare and Charlotte Brontë are turning in their graves right now or 4) I got a hard-ass marker who had a ruler stuck up his/her ass and just hated my writing!

Upon reflection, I do not believe my essays were that repulsive or abhorrent and I honestly feel that I tried my best. Granted, my essay for GP seemed a tad long but that was only because my handwriting was large. Maybe I just have to accept that Life dealt me with a bad hand of cards and that it's a lesson for me to learn from.

I suppose the only good thing about today is that Lupita Nyong'o beat Jennifer Lawrence for Best Supporting Actress, what the flying fuck.

things I've learnt after 3 weeks at work

1. Most people in my office speak that horrendous Chinglish smashgorism that is highly prevalent in the Singaporean population, making me ("the banana") the odd one out. I suppose it is social situations like this that highlight the intense bifurcation between the different strata in our nation - a growing problem that could honestly be virtually unsolvable.

2. Most working people do not care about the technicalities or what they (I believe) consider to be "minor issues" of the English language. It irks me when the proof reading for official government documents is either a) never done or b) sloppy, judging from the poor grammar, inaccurate prepositions and the omission of the definite article. With most of my supervisors and colleagues being engineers, I obviously do not expect them to produce reports with high-falutin or elaborate language, but isn't it reasonable of me to hope for simple, clear, unadulterated and most importantly, grammatically correct English?

Most of my supervisors are university graduates, with one even holding a doctorate, and hence I believe that they are rather intelligent people as they have triumphed over the academic rigour of the engineering course. Yet, most of the ones I have worked with are unable to string grammatically correct sentences in English together, with a warped syntax amongst other issues, and this saddens me because it very possibly means that the education system in Singapore has failed.

To be fair to them, they come from Chinese-speaking backgrounds and are less comfortable in speaking English, which I do not blame them for. However, with this thought in mind, one should presume that they would be able to speak Chinese properly and beautifully, yes? Sadly the reality is a far cry from this assumption, as evidenced by point 1 (as above). The majority of people I have witnessed speaking proper mandarin in full, complete sentences are: 1) People from China, 2) Chinese school teachers, 3) Chinese tuition teachers and 4) Some Malaysian Chinese individuals.

I wonder if this mode of communication is borne out of habit or due to our inability to master a language properly. Personally, I speak the Chinglish smashgorism when I am forced to because 1) my chinese is terrible, 2) I do not have the right social environment to practice speaking proper mandarin and 3) I hate my mother tongue as boring school lessons made the process a bazillion times more painful for me. I admittedly, am very embarrassed and ashamed of my inability to be truly bilingual (against the wishes of our founding father LKY), and now I have forgotten so many Chinese words to the point that I often stare at Chinese characters blankly when browsing through SPH's free publication, My Paper.

So does this mean that Singapore's education system has largely failed us, regardless of your background and what language your family speaks at home?

In scenarios like this, I would honestly love to fly to Scandinavia and force them to reveal their pedagogical secrets, that allow most of their countrymen to speak good English, even though it is their second language.

I was watching videos from YouTuber PewDiePie yesterday, and this blessed hilarious man is from Sweden - the home of Ikea, Swedish meatballs, Stieg Larsson and EFFECTIVELY BILINGUAL HOMOSAPIENS. Obviously while playing his games he was not giving speeches about wormholes and the time-space continuum, but his command of English was good enough to enable him to crack jokes and comment on how terrible and annoying FlappyBird is. I genuinely believe that I am unable to do the same in continuous sentences  of Chinese, with my colleagues perhaps only marginally better than me.

If Singapore's education system, learning attitudes and social environment do not change, I guess we will be the "jack of all trades, master of none" in the language realm. Now I also do genuinely pity the people working in the SpeakGoodEnglish and HuayuCool campaigns, because they do have a lot of work cut out for them.

3. On a more shallow note, Tanjong Pagar has great/orgasmic/wonderful/fantastic/[insert superlative here] food. Amigos, if you want to go cafe hopping with me  or check out the hawker centres, hit me up!

4. Sending around 400++ emails in the last 4 days of my life was terrible, stressful and deeply unsatisfying. I guess the whole theory of workers having a low morale and hence causing internal diseconomies of scale is very true.

5. Meeting friends for lunch instantly makes my day better - it gives you something to look forward to.

6. It is hard to make friends in the office, especially when your supervisors/colleagues are much older than you and on a different wavelength. The problem is compounded especially when the follow temporary staff are either a) weird as fuck, b) shy or c) unwilling to make friends.

7. Thank god for Whatsapp/SMS/technology, because they keep me connected to people I actually care about, and get me through the daily grind.