Quarter life crisis

I think I'm having a quarter life crisis, not so much instigated by the coming-of-age but the recent occurrence of events that have caused me to lose hope in humanity.

It is telling that now, whenever I garner enough will to write something on my blog, it is inevitably another depressing castigation of modern day society and the humans that perpetuate all that is wrong with it.

I fucking hate humans. And at first, I hate that I hated humans. I used to love people. Genuinely loved people. Saw beauty, intellect, and passion in even the most boring motherfuckers. Could hold any conversation with anybody and trick myself into becoming interested in a conversation about the randomest shit like gardening. Knitting. IT networks. Your favourite make-up brand. Your mundane career achievements that you think are so brilliant. And withstand that shit for an hour because I will be genuinely, invested.

And now, I really couldn't give a flying fuck. I can't do it anymore. I don't even want to pretend. I just want to say "Shut the fuck up" and leave the room. Or better yet, stay in the room. Stay in that very position, but turn around and eat another party pie while you gawk like the stupid, B-class yuppie that you are.

Wow. You know. I really just can't humour people anymore. Or at least I don't want to. Maybe I still put up the barest sliver of effort - but soon, I feel I'm going to give way to my nascent new personality. That of a cynic. And therefore, not feel the need to comply with social de rigeur and smile politely while you spew absolute bullshit fuckery into my face. I would love to curl up all that crap into a fireball and launch it right back at you; jam it so far down your throat you don't know what hit you. Because by god, someone needed to do it. And at some point, you needed to learn how boring or I guess, fake and incompetent you are.

Yeah. I don't know how I'm going to keep being alive for another fifty years when I now realise how ridiculously disappointing and flawed and disgusting humans are.

So driven by selfishnes and egotism. Insecurities and self-delusion.

Fuck.

You know. When you've dealt with people like that, it is the most exhausting thing in your life. It really does change you. And now I know how people become such nihilistic, negative, cynical shits. It's because of other people being so shit.

And the guys and girls around me who are like "hah the world isn't so bad!!! People need to stop being so negative" - yeah. Well, you know, they're kind of lucky they've never had to deal with such shitty ass people. Like, really. You're so lucky. God, I envy you.

You never had someone who was so bad, they just turn everything you ever believed in on its head, and which makes you kind of scared.

Because you put so much trust into that person, and you saw so much greatness in them - only to be betrayed by the venom that also existed alongside that very greatness.

See. People are like that. They can have dual sides to them. A multidimensional fucking thing going on because that's what humans are. They can be so amazing. And so ridiculously bad at the same time. And when you're new to this shit, it takes time to realise - wowwwwwwwwww this person that I thought was SO AMAZING is actually the biggest fucking waste of a time I've ever experienced. Sexist. Racist. Violent. Whatever. It's like women who fall for guys who end up beating them. There may actually be so many other amazing things about this man, but it just so happens that he also beats his wife.

And the saddest thing is when the wife tries to help 'change' him, because she still loves him.

Anyway.

It's kind of weird using that analogy. Because the person who betrayed me was not like that - you know - not violent.

I never even dated him.

He was just a best friend that I really really loved, who ended up revealing his true colours - he was racist, misogynist, disrespectful to so many others, cheated on so many partners, lied to his friends and lied to himself. He lied so fully to himself that he believed in those lies. And what could I do, but watch him descend into an abyss of self-destruction that even he was partly conscious of.

I think if it were just this one time, that I had a friend like that, I would be ok. I would still be the same person.

But you know what shits me. The fact that I had another friend who had such similar issues. That I basically had to coach and mother throughout the friendship until I realised he wasn't able to change, and I removed myself from a mentally draining and frankly, abusive cycle.

Just WHAT THE FUCK.

Then there was the guy, who deluded himself into thinking... no. I can't even go on.

The list is too long.

I have a lot of great, great friends. Intelligent, respectful, deep friends. But because I had been such an immensely trusting, friendly and open person, I also ended up exposing myself to so many toxic fucking people. And then I realised how many men were out there (I mean let's be honest, they're usually men) who can be so charming and whatever when you interact with them briefly, day to day... and you get to know them more and discover how fucked they are.

And yeah. I guess, the accumulation of all that... has just taken its toll. Finally.

I have felt myself change so much the past few months.

And whatever. Like, I'm fine. I'm still high-functioning. I'm just really disappointed. So disappointed. And I was scared that I had been changing so much - having these thoughts about humanity and how shit people were. I was like wow that's not me! and then I panicked because I was scared I was becoming depressed. When really, I was just growing the fuck up because of what happened.

It was soooo weird feeling myself becoming introverted, when before I had been so massively extroverted. The sort of person someone would say "Her? Shy? No fucking way. She's fucking wild lol." And now I'm the person whom my boss is like "A quiet member of the team, but the most organised."

Jesus chrisssssssssssst. What am I becoming.

I don't fucking know. I mean, I have some idea. But will my cynicism ever end? Will this massive pot of disappointment that I have brewing inside me like some fucking potion about to explode, ever retreat to a manageable simmer?

I mean maybe right now, it's manageable. Maybe I'm not even that bad, compared to people like my current boyfriend, who was way more pessimistic and cynical as a person than I was.

Ah. Idk. Idk.

what is life

I don't know how to feel anymore. 

The more I know, the more I understand that humans are chaotic, greedy, stubborn and selfish. Doomed by their own nature to repeat the worst of history. 

I want to withdraw myself from the world, and just reside in a warm cocoon of cotton candy, masticating slowly on the walls around me, and intermittently basking in the luxury of inconsequential over-sleep to become the literal embodiment of the metaphorical, modern millennial. 

Every time the television comes on, or I open my phone to check the news on Facebook, my brain is attacked by an onslaught of white noise. It makes me feel veritgo. Dizzy and sick. 

For someone who is so good at bonding with people, I end up hating people. I am just so exhausted. Why are there so many idiotic people in this world, without any basic compassion for their fellow humans? Without any nuance and mindfulness to their worldviews??

No. No. I don't want to think about it.

Life is a constant struggle and thinking about these big questions will make you drown faster. All we can hope for is that our hard work pays off - in the form of a lifesaving jacket so we can bob along, heads above water, not drowning but not particularly comfortable either.

My head literally hurts.

Dousing the fire.

Vastness of water
Oscillating waves
A velvety symphony
Of blue, green, and grey
Festooned by a ribbon of white foam
In which I cast my desperate nets
Seeking new life
Avoiding your wretched gaze
Steering into the marine ataraxis
I escape, escape, escape
The raging inferno within your body
A red that flickers with passion and pain
These fulvous explosions ignited
With your dark, ravenous eyes
I now douse the longing
That conquered my heart, enslaved my brain
It hurt, it burns, it still singes where we kissed
My skin shrivels and sighs
At the thought of your voice in my ear
Of your fingertips on my wrists
But now I leave you behind
You and your halo of flames
An angel screaming in the firepit
That I finally escaped.

Let us drive into the vermillion sunset

It was Proust
Who said those wise words
Remembrance of things past
is not necessarily
Remembrance of things as they were
So help me see the truth
Help me be free
Help me forget those false pictures
Help me remember to breathe
Lead me onto the road to nowhere
On a torrid summer afternoon
Past the boulevard with the rollerblading lovers
And highways adorned with palm trees
Let's keep driving, escaping, disappearing
A hundred miles across the silent coarse desert
Another a hundred by the murmuring soft sea
Let us drive into the vermillion sunset
with reckless abandon, with dangerous speed
Make me fucking feel again
Make me shout, make me bleed
out all of the emptiness
that still afflicts me
Then underneath a blanket of glittering stars
Please take me in a wordless embrace
Lying on the bonnet of an 84 Testarossa
Staring into the darkest pockets of deep space
As balmy zephyrs caress our cheeks
And the crickets come out to play
I'll let go of all those memories
that caused me so much pain.

Murder

Like roadkill
Dead
Red
Scorched alive
Drowned in own blood
Left to die
Ripped pelage
Intestines
A host to ants
A magnet for flies
A parallax of death
Cloaked by the night
Placenta for the earth
Assault on the eyes
This is a dead man
No longer has a face
Life unjustly beaten away
By the cruelty and prejudice
Of strangers passing by
Saw him as an animal
They left him to die
Body rotting
Sinking deep
Into the dirt
He now seeps
Somewhere faraway
In the dark
His lover lies
And begins to weep

We're finally free.

I can see it. I can hear it. I can feel it.

The winds that susurrate through these streets.

And the birds that fly above these buildings.

The sound of water lapping gently toward the sand. 

The magnificent blood orange torch of a setting sun, beaming across the horizon.

A light so intense you can feel it glow on your skin.

The ability to love and be loved.

The small smile on his face. His human smile.

So fragile and full of emotion, yet a heart so strong and withstanding of the greatest obstacles.

We let our fingertips touch as we stare into his world, and leave mine behind forever.

To him

I woke up crying from this dream I just had. It was very vivid, and there was one scene where I was standing on a bridge in the city, bordered by a transparent criss cross facade on one side, like the ceiling above H&M at Chadstone. It was sunrise. As I was walking down ever so slowly, not even sure why I was on this bridge, I could feel so strongly the sunlight and shadows, as filtered through the facade, dance across my skin. I could feel the soft touch of the morning breeze, and closed my eyes to the first trickle of Chinese tourists that were oohing and aahing in the background, admiring what must be a beautiful cityscape behind me. I stood there facing the facade, and closed my eyes, breathing in very slowly - my body enveloped by this warm glow of light.

A voice had whispered to me 'karma will come, don't do to others what you wouldn't want them to do to you'. And for some reason, in this dream, I had apparently cut off all ties with my friends. I had lashed out, insulted them, hurt them, turned them away. And when I opened my eyes again, and saw them materialise before me, I could see from each of their faces that I was alone, and nobody would ever speak to me again. I called out to them, but they walked away, some of them hurling abuse, giving me what I had given them.

From that scene, I dreamt that I had woken up in bed next to my high school friend (whom I caught up with yesterday irl). I was sobbing uncontrollably and reaching for a glass of water while she groggily sat up and patted me on the back, saying 'it's alright, it's just a dream, I still love you'. And she went back to bed.

Through my sobs, I got out of bed and walked to the balcony. I heard his voice. He walked onto the balcony from a different entryway, carrying some sort of clipboard, checking off things with two guys who looked like renovators. I could tell he was happy, and when he saw me, his eyes lit up so bright and an impossibly goofy smile unravelled on his face. He greeted me cheerfully, but I continued to sob like a devastated child, telling him about my dream and that everybody hates me.

He laughed in a comforting way, and then said "What! Don't be silly Cindy, of course we love you, you doofus! I love you." And then he hugged me.

Then I really woke up. And I woke up with real tears in my eyes. And I thought about all the little things and big things that he did for me. Every single time he picked me up, bought me food, told me I was beautiful, and tried to be a better person for me. Every time he smiled at me, called me stupid names with that goofy but unadulterated look of love on his face. Of a joy so pristine and peaceful.

We were two people at two different places in our lives, with mismatched values that didn't mesh well long term. Me unable to treat him as well as he treated me was a major reason why I had to do it for both of our sakes.

But I will always, always remember that smile. And no matter what I do in my life, and where I am, I will still love him - as a friend. I feel bad that I had hurt him so deeply, or caused him to feel so much resentment. But with him, I had some of the happiest and most peaceful moments in my life.

Pact

We watched as the car burned and melted. 

"Do you think maybe, we shouldn't have had that much to drink?" he asked. 

I couldn't take my eyes off the wreckage. 

"Yeah, probably," I mumbled.

The flames seared the bonnet of the totalled car and the smell of metal and gasoline became overwhelming. I remember reading somewhere, that space smelled like burned metal.

"We should probably get away from it for now," he suggested. I immediately agreed, but then asked him what we should do if the trees caught fire. I said I'd feel bad if that happened.

"Well, I don't think it will. But even if it did...would it really matter after tonight?"

I didn't answer, but merely shook my head to signify no - it didn't matter if people found out. Nothing would matter anymore. 

Hand in hand, we left what used to be his mother's car combusting on the side of the dirt path and walked toward the forest, deeper and deeper into an abyss. 

He flicked open the heavy duty torch and shone the path before us. 

The foliage wasn't too dense. The trees grew more sparsely in this area, allowing plenty of moonlight to seep through.

Soon enough, we reached the lake. 

It was beautiful. There was a full moon tonight. Its reflection a perfect mirror on the still water. 

We stood there and admired the scene before us for what seemed like an eternity. Breathed it all in.

He wrapped his fingers around my hand even more tightly. I looked at him, then he looked at me. Our eyes interlocking into a fiery trance.

"Let's do it," I exhaled. 

"Okay."

From the back of his trousers, tucked into his belt, he brings out the gun - his father's vintage revolver. The barrel was polished so shiny and black. The light hit it just right so that it seemed to glimmer like a jewel. I didn't know if that was just my mind playing tricks on me. 

With my heart pumping desperately, I watched him raise the barrel to his chin, angling it right. 

He waited a minute of silence between us, his eyes watering up as he returned my nervous stare. 

"I love you," he finally whispered. 

Then he pulled the trigger. And I felt his blood splatter across my face.  

Tears fell uncontrollably. My entire body heaved with ugly sobs and gasps. My knees weak, I knelt down next to his body, lying there so peacefully in the grass. I slowly unclasped the revolver from his hand. Then I brought it to my temple, my index finger caressing the trigger.

I looked up and admired, for the final time, the cluster of stars that lit up this part of the night sky.

I want to go out and not have to bring a purse.

I want to wear baggy jeans, an old oversized sweatshirt, and take a long drag of my cigarette while I lean on a balcony and the wind billows through my hair in the night.

I want to breathe in, and feel like things are moving in slow motion.

I want to feel curious, and enamoured by everyone and everything.

I know my heart will beat fast, but my mind will be slow.

And that nothing really matters but right here and now. 

I will feel the balmy summer breeze on my cheeks and neck. 

Watch an old street lamp flicker like a flame.

Then close my eyes. Tilt my head back slightly.

And feel an overwhelming calmness. 

Like I'm standing in front of an ocean. 

Watching the sun set across an iridescent horizon.

Glimmering tantalisingly. Red, orange, and blue.

So peaceful. 

So free of noise and bullshit. 

And when I open my eyes, I'll see the white moon in the black night sky above me. 

I'll wonder about the universe, and aliens, and other planets.

A vast space unexplored.

I'll rest my cigarette, and take another sip of whiskey. 

80s synthwave playing in the background. 

S E X

Two nights ago at the dinner table, I accidentally made my family sit through (at least) ten seconds of Andrew McCarthy pretending to perform cunnilingus on actress Jami Gertz in the 1987 film Less Than Zero. 

I should have known better than to watch a film adapted from a Bret Easton Ellis novel (he also wrote American Psycho) with my parents... I actually didn't even know what was happening at first, because the scene was so dark and the angle so weird. All I heard and saw were some mushy kissing noises, heavy breathing, some flesh, and random bits of cloth.

Then I realised that that was the back of Andrew McCarthy's head gyrating between Gertz's legs, underneath her skirt. Wow. And there we all were, me and my super conservative quinquagenarian Chinese parents eating fried prawns and chewing on pork trotters while watching a young woman scream in pleasure.

I eventually awkward laughed and changed the channel, having only waited an excruciating ten seconds because I thought okay, this is an eighties film, surely there would be nothing so explicit and this would be over in like 0.5 seconds. I was wrong. Ahh the liberalism of western pop culture.

But the whole time I figured - hey, my conservative Chinese parents need to accept that I often watch movies with a bit (and sometimes a lot) of sex in it. Plus, seeing young people have brazen extemporaneous sex would be one way of getting them to realise that sexual desire should not be something to feel ashamed about, and sex before marriage is a common thing, at least in the country where we live. Most importantly, that it doesn't make a woman some sort of dirty, grotesque demimonde. My morally anachronistic mother likes to describe these women as, 'an unwrapped, used, regifted present that no man in their right mind would accept'.

beautiful

I'm glad I'm not fucked up like she is about this stuff

but honestly, it's surprising how I still know people my age that subscribe to such bullshit moral standards

Ephemeral

And when he smiles, I smile.
When he laughs, I laugh.
I feel his fingers around my waist.
His eyes on my face.
And I know this won't last.
But I relish all of it.
Every gaze.
Every touch.
That endures a second too long.
I love it. Love it. Love it.

Sweet dreams

Oooh. Ooooh.

She moans.

Body writhing.

Back arching.

A beautiful bridge.

Of flesh and ribs.

I kiss her chest. 

Admire her lips.

But as I stare.

Look upon her delicate frame.

My tears unravel.

A history of pain.

It's been so long.

She says.

Reads my mind.

Too long.

I whisper back. 

Fingers caressing.

Her eyelids.

Her nose and cheeks.

Where have you been.

I ask. Voice wavering.

A waterfall of tears.

An ocean of grief.

A small smile she gives.

A bittersweet marker.

Of the life she lives.

Having fun.

She laughs. Nonchalantly.

I watch her calmness.

Collarbone heaving.

Translucent white skin.

Her arms are reaching.

Around my body.

Pulling me towards her.

A grip so tight. I suffocate.

Never let me go.

I think.

I won't.

She says.

I close my eyes. 
Enclose her with my embrace.
Please. Please.
Let me sink into her.
Let me be with her.
Let her stay.
This one time. 



I open my eyes.
Daylight seeping through the blinds.
It hits the spot on the bed.
Where she used to be.
It is empty.
It has been empty for years.
And I can do nothing.
But stare.
In silence.
Because last night.
Was just a dream.

Section 8.

Drunk. So drunk. 

I knew I was. 

Lights glittering.

Table glimmering.

With alcohol.

Smell of cigarettes.

On the balcony.

Vibrations beneath my feet.

Doof. Doof. Doof.

Feels so good.

Feels so light.

Everybody looks better at night.

Laughs. Giggles.

Flirty gazes.

Inappropriate exchanges.

Of touches.

Ever so soft.

Across my cheek. 

Around my neck.

On his lips.

In my hair.

Ahhhhh.

He whispers. 

Close your eyes.

Deep breaths.

Hot and wet.

I can taste it.

With my skin.

Hmmmm.

Don't let it stop.

Don't let this night end.

Dear Friend

Every few weeks or so, we'll have the same talk.

You'll complain about feeling empty inside. About being depressed. About not understanding why you're feeling this way, and not being able to even describe your pain. We know that something happened last year which was the catalyst for this. But even so, the situation has evolved so far beyond what transpired that surely, what you're experiencing now is a matter concerning something else entirely.

I try to understand you. But more importantly, I try to just be there for you. Emptiness and loneliness are killers. I've known its miasmic grasps, felt its tendrils clutch me and pull me towards a fucked up emotional black hole when nobody, not even I, expected it. So this is why I'm trying so hard to keep you from feeling the same way. It's difficult. I'm probably already too late, which is what makes me sad.

Because even though you can be damn frustrating, quite unscrupulous, and have hurt others gratuitously, you are also to me, irreplaceable. You are incredible. You have directly and indirectly brought me so much joy in my day to day life. And you don't even know.

When you complain about feeling empty, I think about all the accumulated hours we spent laughing together, bonding over our elitist yet puerile sense of dark humour.
When you say you have no-one who understands you, I think about our almost exact same tastes in movies, books, authors, prose, and even moral-philosophical leanings. The time I finished your sentence when you were quoting Oscar Wilde at my favourite bar. And all the other times we've agreed on the same things, sometimes to others' chagrin.
When you joke that you have nothing to live for, I joke that you're not allowed to kill yourself until I return from my work overseas, but truthfully, I worry about how ironic (or unironic) you're being.

And I think about me, and all the other people who still consider themselves your friends, who keep wanting to hang out with you despite your flaws. I think about your family. Your cats. Your sister.

I think about your excellent Chinese skills, your extensive general knowledge about the world, your insatiable hunger for good books, and proactive extracurricular life. Not to brag, but you're basically me, and I'm pretty amazing. Except there's the fact that your soul is being corroded by a deep-seated, inexplicable depression, which makes you lash out or act against your better interests.

I feel kind of helpless. I don't know what to do to make you feel better about yourself and the way life is for you right now. I want to help, but it's hard to help somebody who doesn't seem to want help in the first place. Who isn't willing to commit to their own future and wellbeing. When you isolate yourself, it hurts. And I didn't even knew it would hurt until you did it.

That's when I realised how much I love you as a friend. We don't need to have deep discussions about life or know every little thing about each other's childhoods and families. I just feel happy when I talk to you. I enjoy every minute we spend together, whether in person or online. And I'm so extremely grateful for all these little experiences, not to mention the incredible people you've introduced me to as well.

I guess in writing this, I just want to let you know in the strongest and clearest way possible, what you mean to me. I really care about you, and it would break me to observe you receding from the world, feeling unhappy, and depriving the rest of us of the wonderful person that you are. You're still floating above it all, but please don't get worse.

Anyway. Unless you really want to push me away, I will always be here for you. No matter where I am, what I'm doing, and how many years have passed, I'm still your friend. So try not to nihilistically torture yourself. Give yourself a bit of hope, because I have so much hope for you.

End

It's the dead of the night and the outskirts of the city have fallen into a trance. Old wooden street lamps with peeling skins of red and blue paint illuminate the hushed narrow laneways. Rusted metal bikes, plastic crates, and bits and pieces of gnarly wet cardboard are stacked high into hills of junk against the walls of people's homes.

In this part of town, the folks lived in old, low rise tenements; sleeping, eating, and shitting in flats so small they could barely be called 'rooms'. Cockroach infestations. Piss stains. And walls so thin you could hear a neighbour's cough from the left, and the screams of a woman being beaten by her abusive husband from two doors right.

Many of these flats were inhabited by depressed housewives looking after young children while the absentee fathers slaved at some chemicals factory fifty miles away. Sometimes, there is also a moribund grandparent deteriorating in front of the television, blind to the colourful images flashing on the screen, their eyes having already succumbed to the milky blue sheen of late stage glaucoma. If men lived here, they were drunks and losers whose bodies or minds no longer enabled them to work. All these people stuffed like sardines into weathered, dented, cold war era cans... rotting away their souls in a frothing stew of hopelessness and boredom, spiced only with what was available - wanton crime and adultery.

These tenements were essentially prisons. They were grey, and boring, and the windows adorned by a facade of steel bars. To keep burglars out? No. There was nothing of value to steal here. The more appropriate answer was to keep little kids in - from falling and splattering their brains on the asphalt, or to stop mothers from jumping to their deaths, fed up with husbands who never returned, and who were themselves dying from the lethal amounts of ammonia they inhaled daily at the nearby factory for unlivable wages. It was a woebegone backwash of a town.

And I needed to be free from it.

It was freezing, and I could see wisps of my breath dance in front of my eyes. It probably wasn't a good idea to take a stroll in this weather, time, or location, especially not as a lone woman.
 I had no phone on me, nor items that could be jerry-rigged as a weapon at any given moment. Assaults on women were notoriously common here, what with the lack of husbands around. Men drunk off baijiu would often roam the streets in the evening, scouring for prey. But it didn't matter to me. Not tonight.

I weaved through several more laneways and trudged past mounds of inexplicable textiles, a syringe, an old broken scooter whose parts have yet to be taken by an entrepreneurial passerby, and finally arrived at my destination.

I inhaled.

I had never been this far and was surprised that the river that stretched before me had not yet transformed into black still ooze strewn with Coca Cola cans and plastic bottles. Surely, despite its somewhat salubrious appearance, the chems from the factory two kilometres ahead would have poisoned it already. I wasn't complaining though. It would at least help make the end more pleasant.

I walked over to the shoddy steel bridge and looked over the water. I knew it was deep. A few children have drowned here over the last decade. With the parents away or occupied, toddlers were always falling out of balconies, running in front of trucks, getting stuck in drains, or wandering into rivers. Always dying gruesomely. Would there be any bodies left in here?

I climbed up onto the railing, and it shuddered beneath me. My hands gripped the pole, but my fingers were trembling. For the fifth time in the last thirty seconds, I inhaled deeply, sucking in the air until I could no more. But this time, I held it. I had played this over and over again in my mind - dreamt about it - desired it. And I knew I was more than ready.

Goodbye.

I leaped away from the railing, arms wide open, eyes closed, and suspended in the air for those brief milliseconds - I embraced my newfound freedom.

Dear Diary [tag: feelings]

Edit: why do I have to write another melancholy as fk existential post. I've written too much now and I don't want to waste it, so I'm posting it. lol.

Last night, I had the weirdest pang of nostalgia. It hit me so hard I started getting super emotional and reminiscent about pretty much all the strongest and best cyberpunk/friendship memories of my entire life. Yeah, it's a weird combo, but it really defines me so well.

A montage of me from when I was a toddler, till now, started playing in my mind like an old school VHS film reel - 80s synth playing and intermittent flickers across the screen (like you know, vaporwave stuff lol don't judge). It helped that I had just finished watching a video on Facebook celebrating the 18th anniversary of The Matrix's release, which is one of the earliest movies I ever remember watching as a kid, and it was undoubtedly a huge influence on me and my imagination growing up. Seeing those clips of The Matrix, and being in this particular sleepless, slightly tipsy (I was drinking), introspective mindset, really set me off.

So I'm lying in bed at 5am. It's still dark and I'm fully awake, scrolling aimlessly through my Facebook feed. I had just finished a two hour long video chat with a friend I've only known for a month. So far, he's one of the greatest persons I've met. He's super friendly, interested in everything, has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, consumes 'mass media' en masse as he claimed, he's funny, and I generally get along so well with him that I feel like we've known each other for way longer, and would be very close friends if we kept this going. We don't even really talk about 'deep' things, you know. We just talk about books, and films, his love and my avoidance of sports, and dealing with creepy people.

I have been making a lot of friends of this calibre in the last year and a half, and it is honestly shocking. Because I think for most people, it is so rare to make so many new friends in such a short time, and to make such great friends with people... Yeah.

By the way, I fucking never do video-chats. Or web-cam. Whatever you want to call it. It's just not something my friends and I have a habit of doing, so being asked to video-chat with a guy I've only gotten to properly know for the past three weeks is a little daunting. He does it a lot with his friends so it's nothing to him, though he clearly knows how much I was reluctant about it.

Anyway. Damn. Like. Snuggled up in my bed at ungodly hours, having a really good conversation with someone, feeling totally relaxed... it was so nice. And I just feel like I haven't had this particular experience with a friend in a long time.

I definitely have other friends that I talk to till 3am sometimes, but the mood and atmosphere is usually very different. Tonight, I had other friends sending me videos of them getting wasted on a beach alone to 90s sex-pop-RnB anthems blasting through their phone, and another by default of his personality, sending me dank memes and joking about penises (mostly about how his penis is the biggest in the world and would rule all other penises etc. - he's two years younger than me and understandably immature). Altogether though, it is reflective of what a beautiful and quirky mish mash of friends I have.

After I hung up the call with the first friend, I sighed and even started feeling sad that he was an international student, so would only be here two years. And you know, I'm leaving for China to work after June, so I won't be here for the rest of the time. Then he'll fly back to Pakistan or wherever he'll be going. And staying there. Like, forever.

This made me a little sad. And bear with me - after I watched that Matrix vid (which was after we hung up), I started thinking about my childhood, including of course that time I sat in front a friend's massive home cinema in 2001, being five years old, and watching Neo and Trinity kick ass for the first time.

In my mind, I could really clearly see myself  -  the tiny figure of this little five year old kid, sitting cross-legged in the dark with bright flashy images of latex clad gun-wielding action heroes, having me in silent rapture. I even reminisced the screen projecting a flurry of light and shadows on my probably half-agape, awestruck face.

Then I started thinking about my adolescence - walking to the high school gates under the glaring morning sun, passionately reading Dan Brown (which we talked about), having lunch at the local food court with friends, watching anime immediately after I got home, making public announcements about how much I wanted to marry Edward Cullen, and staying up super late on MSN chatting to A and H, two really good high school friends I had at the time but don't speak to anymore.

And having this existential montage, I just got this fucking lame as thought... like - damn. Who am I? What am I but the sum of all these weird, unique experiences? What am I but the product of those I am closest to? These experiences have all shaped me so distinctly, and given me my current sense of identity.

I suddenly started getting super nostalgic, and really acute memories of certain sensations, smells, tastes, sounds, atmospheres - bombarded me.

e.g.:

• getting the Scholastic Book Club catalogues and spending ages picking out new purchases
• the smell of sand on a hot summer's day. Sandboxes. And young, sweaty children
• linoleum corridors
• that slight damp smell at the locker bays in high school
• staying up till 4am to watch a football match with A while we chatted on MSN
• going on MSN and the satisfaction of getting a message notification beep at you
• MSN
• watching Bleach (an anime) and neglecting all homework
• going to M's house after school once and being introduced to mando-pop
• making a paper crown with the word 'Hitler' written on it and wearing it in Chinese class because I don't fucking know
• the smell of new school books
• having TVs that were still three dimensional and not flat
• watching Godzilla under the table cos I was scared 
• school bathrooms (ew)

 ANYWAY. Most of all, I started thinking about H, whom my new friend reminds me a lot of due merely to the fact that we seem to be able to talk about anything and everything until 4am. And that made me even more sad, since H left for Canberra when we graduated high school and though we were in the same country, we drifted apart.

I haven't really seen or spoken to H at all since then. One time, he made a surprise visit to my uni halfway through my first year, and I actually cried when I saw him. We hugged for a long time, and though it's not like we actually hung out a lot during high school, it was the connection I felt with him that was special.

S-special.

*echoes inside my brain*

Damn. This is fucking sad. Time to go listen to Drake.

Back to uni, smelly people, and my dad singing

Today was my first day back at uni for the year. The sky was blue. The sun was out. And our campus centre building wasn't completely gridlocked by sweaty first years or, as we super cool geriatrics like to call them, 'jaffies'.

Speaking of sweaty people, last night I went to see Madeon and Porter Robinson live at Hisense Arena, and it was the first time I had ever been in a mosh pit. It was great being so close to the stage and being surrounded by people who were just as passionate about electropop/house as I was, but the worst thing about this was the Body Odour (BO), emanating from the overwhelmingly male crowd. it was absolutely terrible. It just reminds me that hey - yeah - there are people (lots, in fact) who actually suffer from BO and need to use, like, chocolate-candy-nutella-pot-pourri-pheromone-laced-smelling Lynx deodorant. Thank god I don't have a BO problem. I don't think I'd allow myself to exist if I went to a concert and people were forming a 2m radius around me like 'ew, you smell like weed, used socks and maybe gangrene' (lol idk).

I also learnt another thing about being in the mosh pit. If you're tall, you can get a great vantage point, but shorter people are going to freaking hate you. And if you push in through the crowd and 'inadvertently' block some poor girl's (i.e. me) view, I will hate you and abuse you. See, last night, two to three guys were pushing right in front of me, and they were ALL much taller than me. So I sarcastically remarked 'wow guys, this is like the Great Wall of China right here' *gesticulates to theirs truly*. Never mind that one of the guys was actually Asian and therefore this might have come off somewhat racist (?), they actually graciously tried to move out of the way and I even thanked them. Wow. Just goes to show, you gotta be assertive af. Show them who wears the pants in this mosh pit.

Anyway. So now that I'm back at uni, I'm going to have to change my sleeping cycle... at least a little. During the last four months of vacation, I legit slept at dawn and woke up at anywhere between 2 to 5pm. I am positively nocturnal, still is, and having to get out of bed at 9am this morning killed me. Because I literally just didn't sleep. I lay in my bed until 9am, at which point I actually started feeling sleepy, and then I had to get out of bed and go to uni. Fucking terrible. What's even worse is that I immediately bought a can of Mother energy drink and just consumed that one thing until 3pm, whereupon I bought a pack of sushi at campus centre for the ripoff price of $12.50. And now, I can't sleep, am quasi-bulimic, and almost always destitute because I keep buying exorbitant sushi (and clothes).

What else happened?

So my second and last lecture for the day was Law and Social Theory, which is more like a philosophy unit than a law unit. While we were waiting for the lecturer to arrive, this girl sat down right next to me as opposed to one seat away like I had done to the girl on my right. You know, I'm in sixth year. I'm tired. I'm not really into being all cheery and 'omg hi what's your name?!' and repeating five years of the same dialogue. What I would be up for is a simple:

'Hey, know anybody in this class?'
'Nope, I'm a loner. You?'
'Nup. Let's be study buddies.'
'Okay. I'm *****, add me on Facebook'.

End of discussion. But obviously, smalltalk does not happen like that.

In the end, I didn't say a word to her, at least not orally. My empty stomach, on the other hand, was clearly in a different mood and felt like it was a good time to do a full-blown 自我介绍 before and during class. I hate when that happens. I feel like a freaking whale, warbling this echoey song loud enough for the soundwaves to carry across the fucking Atlantic ocean, and then these two Australian marine biologists in a submarine pinpointing my exact location on some beeping sonar radar, which they point to and go 'yes there she is, starving in lecture theatre E5, crying out for help, how melancholy'.

Onto the topic of singing. For the last two months, my dad has been singing karaoke at ungodly hours in the house. Wait, not just at ungodly hours, but almost ALL THE TIME. He discovered this Chinese app that grades and lets you record your singing, and then share it to your friends. You can also live stream yourself or watch live streams from other Chinese singers. IT IS THE WORST INVENTION IN THE WORLD.

3am AND HE'S STILL SINGING TRADITIONAL CHINESE BALLADS. WHY? DOES HE NOT UNDERSTAND THAT SOME PEOPLE LIKE ME NEED TO QUIETLY CONTEMPLATE THE MEANING OF LIFE AT SUCH TIMES OF DARKNESS? If he sounded like Pavarotti, Helmut Lotti, or hell, even Michael Buble on a Christmas loop, I'd be okay. But when he sounds like, well, him, just NOOOO.

I cannot stand this anymore. In fact, nobody else in the family can't stand it and we've all complained in one way or another, but unless you fully yell at him, it seems the temptation to blast us at 5am with bad operatic yodelling about the Tibetan plains of western China is simply too tantalising.

Ugh. Ok. End of post.

A long-winded recount of valentine's day

1. SEEING MY DENTIST
Today, I went on a triple date with two other couples. Before meeting them though, I had a dentist's appointment at 10am. Now this is probably going to sound gross, but I can't actually remember the last time I went to a dentist. Like... early high school? Which must have been around eight years ago. I actually told my friends this at an Australia Day party we had last month and they were obviously shocked that my teeth weren't rotting and falling out. And I was just thinking - dude, I guess I brush my teeth pretty rigorously and have generally good hygiene? And I don't freaking eat chocolate fudge fondues with whipped cream and nutella or whatever the hell white people like to put in their foods these days. Also, I don't drink coffee (only energy drinks because that's the closest cardiac-stimulant I'll ever get to cocaine level strength without doing illegal shit). And fortunately for me, my teeth have always been naturally well aligned so I've never had to get braces, and neither have I ever grown any wisdom teeth.

So yeah, I'm lucky af.

Anyway. So last month, my friends were like 'wow, tell me what your dentist says about your teeth'. You know, because they were obviously expecting some epic shit to go wrong. And guess what??? My teeth were FINE! No problems at all, though the dentist was palpably not pleased that I had skimped out on a decade of dental care, and got all pissy about me needing to floss every day.

Welp. I guess I will try flossing every day if I can muster the energy. I already brush my teeth three times per day most days due to a personal need to feel 'fresh' after meals. This is also why I am obsessed with mints and always carry packs of it with me when I go out.

After the wash, which was really fucking uncomfortable and made me ominously gag twice in the chair, I texted my boyfriend and told him how "I finally understand why people hate going to the dentist". And then he texted something like - "LOL it was just a wash! #toothprivilege".

Sorry, forgot to check my privilege.

2. BRUNCH AND GOING TO IMAX
After the dentist's, I had to go meet up with two other couples for brunch at 11.30am in the city. Note - I never ever do brunch. Brunch is a goddamn luxury that I cannot afford either monetarily or time-wise. I mean, I sleep at 4am and wake up at 4pm a lot during the holidays, so it's just practically impossible. Today though, I actually had to meet with them that 'early' because we planned to go see a 3D space documentary called A Beautiful Planet at Imax, screening at 1pm.

Yeah, I know. Absolute nerdfest. But I love it. I love that me, my friends B and L, and my boyfriend are so unashamedly into nerdy science things. Last year, we all went out to 'Astrolight' at Scienceworks, which was a night time astronomy festival (yeah, those exist) filled with star-gazing and astronomy-related games and activities. We even got our picture taken by a sneaky Scienceworks photographer and had it posted on their Facebook page! #famous

Today was great. As we were waiting for our bus to IMax, I was joking about how I loved showing off our nerdiness on social media because "it just shows everyone that we're nerdy, intelligent and most importantly, smarter than them" as well as "the bona fide liberal progressive elite everyone loves to hate". And we all laughed uproariously with a totally inbred haughtiness.

When we got to Imax, the blonde middle aged lady who was serving us at the box office was a complete bitch. Proceed to imagine the sort of character you'd see in a British sketch comedy show - the fat old checkout lady with the horn rimmed glasses, staring at you with pursed lips while filing her hideous red painted nails. That was her, but mostly in personality. She was really curt with us when we bought our tickets, and when we all finished coming out of the bathroom to head over to the cinema at 1.04pm (four minutes after the scheduled 1pm screening), she shouted at us from across the room "IT'S DOWN STAIRS TO YOUR LEFT! MOVIE HAS ALREADY STARTED!" And I swear she 'tsked tsked' at us too.

Wow. I would definitely would have thrown a copy of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People at her actual face if it weren't for the fact that she's a fucking checkout chick and would never need to truly utilise social strategy in her vocational life. Though I do feel kind of sorry for her family.

A Beautiful Planet was very short. $17.00 ticket for a 50 minute documentary. I mean, yeah, it looked good, but I was honestly expecting so much more. Jennifer Lawrence narrated the doco and I couldn't help being annoyed at her raspy voice, as well as thinking about how dumbed down this documentary actually was.

We were the ONLY adults who were in the cinema out of our own volition, as opposed to the thirty or so primary school kids that were obviously there for a school excursion. They also stank. Or maybe it was the cinema itself. But yeah, it smelled like feet and betel leaves.

3. GOING HOME
Immediately after the movie, we all parted ways, and my boyfriend and I bused back to his house. Surprise surprise. He popped out of his room with a bouquet of roses! What. a. sweetie. I really wasn't expecting it because he is NOT a morning person, and he also NEVER does brunch. The fact that he even woke up in time for brunch, let alone get up to go buy roses in the morning, was much appreciated.

Then we took his car back to my house and we napped for a billion hours.

4. BLOGGING RIGHT NOW
It is now 4am and I am blogging. My boyfriend is sitting 4 metres away, playing a console game on his Mac. We are both incredibly awake.

Tomorrow, I have to go to a police station and get a Justice of the Peace to sign some documents. Then, I don't know. Maybe I'll blog more. Maybe we'll finish season 1 of Luke Cage. Maybe, I'll play 10 more hours of Invisible Inc, or more probably, start binging on Homeworlds 2. Maybe, I'll accidentally drink water out of a cup that previously held milk and gag because of residual milk taste and have to wash my mouth out for three hours...again.

SAVE ME FROM ADULT LIFE PLEASE

One day, I'm going to leave university.

In fact, that day will come in approximately six months.

By the 22nd of June 2017, I will have finished my last exams of my double degree course and be thrust into the deep end of the corporate pool, swimming among the flavescent faeces of other terrified millennials as we, packed like hungry rats in a tube, collectively rush towards a sad and abysmal reality.

Death by adult life.

Working in an office 9 to 5. Being a desk-bound indentured slave. Having to smile at old people you don't like. Discussing credit ratings and having to do tax returns. Smiling at more old people as they exercise their corrupt authoritarian powers, asking you to retrieve their bi-hourly caffeine fix then forcing you to fix their computer or some other tech shit. You stare at your watch, then back at your screen, then back at your watch, and start imagining what it'd be like to commit hara-kiri in front of your boss, blood spurting out of orifices like NYE fireworks, eyes bulging like Steve Buscemi, mouth agape like a man whose soul just got sucked outta him by the latest Dyson machine.

Fuck. It's so depressing.

And hey, it might not be that bad. I have plenty of friends who work in corporate and haven't  killed themselves yet, but you never know... some of them are, for sure, mentally flaying themselves.

WOW.

I know. I'm being unnecessarily pessimistic/nihilistic. It seems every third post on this blog is me complaining about corporate life and my own career path.

I'm sorry.

I can't help it. I'm at that stage.

Years of dealing with tyrannical bosses has left me a broken shell of my former self.

Oh why oh why!!

I can already see myself slumped over an office desk, dreaming about the good old days when I'd be in an Asian Studies lecture, seated with a pen and notebook, eagerly jotting down WWII stats in the Asia Pacific theatre, looking at old sepia photos of Japanese soldiers, or listening to the professor describe the exploits of Jodhaa Akbar. Analysing maps of Asian Empires and legendary military strategies. Watching Korean pop videos and explaining the success of the Korean wave. Discussing anime films and dissecting Asian pop culture.

Not just that. But...

The physical & emotional sensations of being in a history lecture. 

When it's so unbearably hot during the summer that even the asphalt looks like it's sizzling underneath the sun's gaze. 

But stepping into S4 - it's dark. There are no windows. The aircon billows cool breezes onto your face. You immediately feel the respite, and relish that almost as good as Lipton Ice Tea feeling as you relax in a large airy chamber sparsely dotted with students. 

It's quiet. 

Soon, the sounds of retractable wooden desks being opened with a soft 'bang' against its metal fulcrums heralds the lecturer's arrival. She's a Swedish-Australian with a quirky accent, and an expert in Japanese history. 

For the next hour, she relays graphic stories of wartime heroics and betrayals, of internecine rivalries and incompetent governments of the Japanese Imperial Empire. You listen intently to some of the most interesting and compelling stories you have ever heard. The battles, the soldiers, their families, their friends and enemies -- you are transported there. You experience it, and feel what they felt. Love, loyalty, anger, shame, fear, sadness. 

Then the hour is up. The lecturer says she will see you next week. 

You get out of your chair, brain reeling with indescribable imagery. Again, the sounds of wooden desks being slammed back into its retracted position fills your ears, and as you stand there for a few more seconds to process how much you fucking loved the past hour of your life, you realise you're the only one left in the lecture theatre, and that you need to get out.

You step outside, back under the sun, and breathe out deeply, with happiness, inspiration, enlightenment and fulfilment. Then, you take your wallet out and head off to go buy some salmon sushi from the cafeteria. 

Thing I've experienced lately: 

It's one thing trying to reason with people so stupid, xenophobic and racist that they can't be reasoned with. 

It's another thing trying to reason with intelligent, educated, or at least generally 'good' people that possess minimum standards of compassion and respect towards others, and find that they are willing to support a man like Trump. 

When I hear friends, invariably white male friends, talk about how Clinton is so corrupt or that the status quo is so bad that voting in Trump, a complete idiot, or the other idiotic third party candidates, is actually a better option than voting in Clinton (because 'even if he's shit, at least he'll change things up and force everybody to reevaluate', I just want to slap them. 

And I don't even think Clinton is an ideal candidate. I think her foreign policy stance is really aggressive and worrying, but all else considered, she is NOWHERE near the level of 'corrupt' that many people make her out to be, and though she seems corrupt to some extent, there have been previous Presidents and other men in similarly high-up leadership positions that have done much worse and were never called out on it the way Clinton has. 

If you're going to argue that Clinton is corrupt, don't you fucking use that email scandal, or her changed stance on gay marriage. These are BOTH things politicians have done FREQUENTLY - i.e. deleting emails, leaking classified information, changing their stances on key issues. So if you're going to use these as justifications, FUCK NO. 

If you want to put her in jail for the email thing, put David Petraeus in jail, and thoroughly investigate Bush as well. If you want to attack her for changing her stance on gay marriage - remember that people change. I've had friends who used to slut-shame other girls in class, but are now staunch feminists who fight against this very mentality. I've had friends who were Christian and strongly pro-life, but having grown up, met different people at university, and learnt about the real consequences of pro-life policies for women, and are now pro-choice. When I was 15, I didn't think climate change was worth combatting compared to other issues, and was an anthropogenic global warming denialist. Obviously, I'm not now.  

If a person has changed, and is willing to fight for the right position now, how in the world is that a bad thing??? Even if, yes, Clinton is 'strategic' about her stances - this is not necessarily the worst thing. Being strategic is fucking necessary. People talk about idealism like it's actual realistic. No. 

Compromise is what's realistic. Being smart is what's realistic. And these. Aren't. Bad. 

Overall, Clinton is no Obama, but she is by faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar the most qualified, and the least harmful for America. 

To all the friends who would vote for somebody else just because they don't like Clinton - firstly, you have bought into the hyperbole. You are brainwashed. She isn't THAT BAD that TRUMP is the better option. You're fucking crazy if you think otherwise. 

And now I'm going to use that word that white males hate - 'privilege'. 

You know why I can't support Trump/Stein/Johnson (remember that a vote for a third party candidate basically just gives your vote away to Trump)??? 

Because I'm a minority. You might have felt prejudice once or twice in your life, but for me, for women, for gays, for Mexicans, Muslims, Indians, Blacks and other people who will certainly bear the brunt of the hate that will no doubt explode in massive ways as Trump rises, and which even he will not be able to control, is why I can't take the fucking cop out option of voting for Trump or somebody else other than Clinton, no matter how much we dislike Clinton for other reasons. 

WE. CAN'T. AFFORD TO. 

Already, there are Trump supporters hanging Black dolls from their trees in the front yard, simulating the lynchings of the 1950s, when the KKK was at its peak. Already, there are Trump supporters gearing up with an arsenal of guns and other weaponry, ready for a civil war if Trump isn't elected (this is true btw, there are undoubtedly people doing this and it has been reported). Already, even non-Trump supporters are goaded on by the blatant racism revealing itself on screen and in the streets, and in fucking New York, we recently had two Muslim women get kicked out of a restaurant, get verbally abused on the street, another Muslim woman get set on fire outside an upscale Manhattan boutique, and a Chinese-American man (who was an editor at New York Times) get told by a wealthy-looking white woman in the city centre to 'Go back to China!' and some other racist epithets. 

SO REALLY? ARE YOU BLIND??? ARE YOU DEAF??? Do you not SEE what's happening? Do you not UNDERSTAND what will happen and what is already happening? 

I feel the fear. Do you? You can't. You don't know what it feels like, do you? To have your family and your parents always feel insecure about being subject to racism. To be scared of walking home alone at night. To have friends care more about French people than the suffering of people in countries that many Australians come from. 

OF COURSE NOT. You're white and/or you're a man. You literally cannot feel how we feel. You just don't have to deal with the same problems. And I'm not being a crazy SJW here, but honestly, if you can still support Trump at this stage, or even justify him with a 'oh Clinton's worse' or 'he'll change things' sort of bullshit argument - get the fuck out. I am fed up with how blind you are.