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.

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

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. 

That time a guy lured me into his Aston Martin and was all like 'Do you like it?'

Please relish my true story of which I am relating due to intense procrastination that will probably result in me failing at least one of my upcoming law exams. 

Last year, when my boss pressured asked me to assume the role of MC at the company's charity ball, I got to meet Aston Martin guy - my co-MC. When I walked into the office that day to meet him for the first time, he was already seated at the table, talking business on his phone. He was very young, greatly resembled Andy Lau in physiognomy but much shorter in stature, his voice and manner of speaking exuding the sort of charismatic joviality you'd expect from someone who closes multimillion dollar sales in property (I wasn't aware of his day-job until much later), and wearing an extremely expensive, well tailored suit. He had neatly styled hair that was spiked up in a very trendy early 2000s way, otherwise known as an anachronism, and which I thought perfectly suited the caricature of himself as a garish thirty-something year old upstart in the alpha position of CEO at his own real estate company.

After I walked in, I sat down at the table with my boss and two other female colleagues. He got off his phone a few minutes later and something incredible happened. As soon as he started speaking, compliments about our beauty/femininity were thrown at us left, right and centre. These were half-ironic statements about how young my boss was for her age, how he was flustered being surrounded by beautiful women etc. etc. They ate it up. He even asked me why I didn't enter the Miss Chinese Melbourne beauty pageant, to which I internally grimaced and wanted to say: 'because pageants are stupid, sexist and embarrassing tools perpetuating the objectification of women for commercial and patriarchal value'. I obviously didn't say anything as scarily feminist as that, but I still said 'I think pageants are stupid', to which he presciently and again half-jokingly added 'ahhh yes, well that makes sense as I wouldn't expect an ambitious law student like yourself to enter something like that'. I grimaced again.

Apart from that thing about beauty pageants, he was saying a lot of very flattering bs that I admit, did make me feel good about myself. And I could see how much my boss and colleagues were enjoying having a handsome young man swathe them with witty, well-timed compliments. I thought to myself - wow. This guy is amazing. I mean, yeah, he's a stereotype, but that's what makes him so great at his job. He works with a lot of Asian businesses here, and with people who must be much older than him. I don't doubt for one minute that his Mad Men-esque charisma, where he can at any time switch on that rare old-timey gallantry and joke around with 'the boys', makes him a likeable character in a male-dominated industry where trust, connection and relationships can make or break a deal. And honestly, I didn't judge him too hard for the things he said because I knew he operated frequently if not completely within Asian business circles, and Asian business and networking culture is very different to what we young people would expect in more progressive western environments. So I understood completely if this was the sort of personality it took to win over his clients.

Anyway. So the second time we met, I still had no idea exactly how 'accomplished' he was, and faced with the existential throes of taking the bus home, I unashamedly asked him where he lived and whether it would be convenient for him to give me a ride home. 'Yes! That's fine!" he said eagerly. He said his car was parked close by. 'Maybe a 10 minute walk if that's alright?' He asked. That was definitely okay with me, since I would have had to walk 10 minutes home after taking the bus anyhow.

It was deception. Trickery. A trap.

Since he told me his car was 'parked' close by, I naturally assumed that he lived somewhere else. NUP. He took me to this newly built apartment complex a short walk away from my office. I was like 'uh...what?' And he's like, 'oh yeah, I'll take you down to the underground car park later. I'll just go up to my apartment and get some stuff.'

Apartment? He lives here? The fuck is happening?

I was slightly horrified that he was then making such a huge effort to drive me home. Horrified - not that I was uncomfortable, but because I didn't want him to be inconvenienced. He kept smiling and reassuring me that it was absolutely fine, and that I should just 'wait there', down on ground level. So I stood at the foyer for what felt like forever, until he came back down, and was like 'okay, let's go'.

We took the elevator down to the underground carpark, and before we stepped out, he's like 'so I drive an Aston Martin' or something. I'm like 'yeah ok haha'. And he went 'No, I really do.' And now I was like, LOL?!?!

We walked pass an unmissable yellow Ferrari. He said, 'that's my friend's car. Sometimes he goes overseas and gives me the keys. It's fun. We race a lot.'

Okay, so these weren't his exact words. After all, it's been a year since this happened. But for the sake of story-telling, that was essentially what he said.

Then finally, he led me to this obnoxiously shiny, conifer green Aston Martin DBS.
At this point I was still like no.... 
But then he pressed his keys and the lights lit up.
Then I was like oh... 

Of course, he opened the door for me on my side. I crouched in, proceeded to fall with a thump into my seat (they're really low), for which he apologised for not warning me about, and then I'm like. Holy shit. I'm in an Aston Martin. Internally, I was like WOOOOOOOOOOO! But externally, I was like, 'um yeah this is cool lol thanks.'

I vowed to myself not to be one of those girls. Because that was OBVIOUSLY what he expected.

We're sitting in his two hundred thousand dollar supercar, and he started scrolling through music. He settled on some super loud RnB track with heavy as fuck bass, and asked me 'do you like this music?' I almost burst out laughing, how ridiculous this shit was, but I'm like 'yeah, this is fine', playing it ice cool.

As we made our first turn out of the carpark, he gave the car a few good hard revs. And it's extremely, ostentatiously, hilariously loud for a semi-suburban street. It also felt fucking good. You can feel your entire body vibrating. It's that sensation when you're out a club or concert, the music is just blasting so loud the entire floor quakes beneath you, and this heavy narcotic sensation envelops your entire physical and spiritual being. Yeah. For like five seconds, that's what it was like.

Then he's like, very very unsubtly, 'You like that?'
I'm like 'What's not to like about this?'
And he goes 'Girls love this stuff, don't they? The fast cars... the noise... the music'

Inside, I was fucking dying. Dying of laughter. I couldn't believe how cheesy and contrived this entire dialogue was. Obviously, he didn't know me well enough to understand that I'm way too sophisticated and hyper-aware to be swayed by this sort of fuccboi flirting (unless of course, I was actually into it). I tried not to smile so hard.

Even funnier, after we turn out of the carpark, he completely and illegally speeds down the entire 300 metre or so stretch of the street, revving like Jamie Whincup in a V8 Rally, but not really because this was actually a part of Australian suburbia lined with Asian groceries and inhabited by lots of old Chinese women with shopping trolleys. I said nothing. We kept going.

We had a relatively tame conversation about work, saving money and financial success. The whole time, I tried not to show any sign that I was even remotely impressed by his wealth or being in an Aston Martin, which just made everything about this really funny to me. I was just like, yeah cool, I'm just a person having this totally mature discussion with you i.e. ain't gonna fawn over yo shit.

At one point, he was implying that if you work young, start saving early, you too can be like me. And I was like, but I just spend all my money on food. And he tells me to stop having brunch and dining at expensive restaurants, which he just totally assumed I was doing. Inside, I was like - um, I literally never do brunch and when I mean 'buying food', I mean spending all my money on Hungry Jack's 6 chicken nuggets for $3.00 and my favourite KFC original tenders box, with a special large potato and gravy upgrade cos I fucking love potato and gravy. I really should have said that, now that I think about it. It would have destroyed any fantasy he had of me being an easily susceptible, uber superficial, uber fit, Heston Blumenthal-crazy, Michael Kors-toting, pretty girl.

While I was being completely cold to his attempts to impress me, I did do this one thing that I couldn't help - I'd look at the people in the cars next to us and see whether they were looking back at us with envy/aspiration. Because if I were sitting next to a car as sexy as his, I'd want to see what the person driving it looks like. Usually, it'd be some fifty something year old white dude wearing a branded cap of whatever car he was driving. Ferrari? Ferrari cap. BMW? BMW cap. But here we were, two Asian kids - me, 21 wearing tank top and jeans, and him, suited up and looking barely over 27.

Anyway, for the rest of the trip, he had deliberately rolled down all windows, with music blasting pretty loudly. It was hard not to notice us. And then he dropped me back home. The thing is, at the time, I had been holding down a couple of jobs, and most of my bosses had expensive cars. They all drove some recent model of Porsche and Mercedes SUVs/sedans, and so for the last two months or so, I had been continually dropped off at my front door in these super expensive obsidian black, metallic blue, glossy automobiles. But an Aston Martin DBS was a major step up.

I wondered what my nosy as fuck Asian neighbours thought of this (they once dobbed me in to my parents after seeing me with my Sri Lankan (ex) boyfriend).

Outside my house, I said 'thanks for the ride', keeping the effusiveness on the down-low (usually I'm extremely grateful for a ride home from anyone), and he was like 'no worries' etc. Then I went in, and he left, visibly disappointed by my down-to-earth attitude.


The end.

Well. It's 7.30am and I'm still awake - as in, I haven't gone to sleep since I woke up yesterday. The secret to my vampirish lifestyle? A golden chalice of Red Bull-fortified virgin blood every evening. I mean, obviously.

I just watched two episodes of Madam Secretary because I was procrastinating revising for Evidence Law. Damn, this show is great. It's so good I'd put it on par with The Good Wife, which was an excellent show (save for the terrible finale that caused richter scale waves of disappointment among the fanbase) and similarly featured a lot of contemporary social issues and dramatic office politics. So yeah, Madam Secretary is a smart and highly relevant show. It makes me instantly want to become a politician and just smack every opposing party member in the face with a charming smile hiding a cobra-like sting of coercion. I definitely recommend the show for anyone with better taste than Suits or Agents of Shield, the latter of which features such cheesy acting and can stoop to such unbelievable dumbassery that I was like - yeah, that's definitely Joss Whedon directing.

Can somebody invent a line of cocaine that will help you stay awake and prevent epithelial outbreaks resulting from unhealthy circadian rhythms?  I think L'Oreal needs to get on this shit. There's a huge market to be capitalised on and it's of way more social utility than the current trend of thick flagellum shaped eyebrows that have now progressively become:

If I stay up any longer my skin is going to burn.

Exposure to the dark web, 4chan and sex, violence, and gore

My ability to tolerate other people and their shitness is amazing. Actually, my ability to tolerate the stupidity and ignorance of worldwide society is amazing. If you've actually read my previous posts, you'll know I've had a lifetime of training for this. And not just because I've had to deal with atavistic adults in my personal and professional realm, but because I used to be an avid commenter on contentious news articles and intrepid explorer of the dark web. You might laugh but the latter is mostly represented by 4chan (being the springboard to even darker material), which I used to check up on a lot to smirk at politically incorrect jokes, many of which would have broken provisions in the Racial Discrimination Act/your souls. But I also go on to analyse the fascinating psyche, attitudes, opinions and beliefs of this much derided and hormonally imbalanced community.

The reason why 4chan is interesting to me is because it is a no-holds barred communication platform. Under anonymity, people say what they really think and feel. And they can be as ragey as they want. Obviously, there's a lot of racism, sexism, homophobia etc. that's prevalent on the threads, but being aware of how ingrained these attitudes are among certain 'lowlifes' of our communities, and how secretly they hold onto these attitudes, is in itself a highly valuable sociological insight. If you can handle the porn and shitposting, sometimes you do come across some very serious and personal stories about family, romance, academia... usually, these are really sad stories from lonely and depressed people who have nobody else to talk to. Being able to look through this window into another person's most deeply held fears, insecurities, or experiences, is something that I think most of us would find interesting to read. And it does make you a little bit wiser when interacting with other people. You never know what sort of pain others are going through, and if you go into 4chan with full awareness of its nature, you (ironically) become more attuned to the effects of bullying, family violence, and depression.

Secondly, 4chan is the birthplace of many of the internet's greatest urban legends, catchphrases, memes and global online movements, including the now infamous hacktvisit group, Anonymous. I mean, how can you resist? Even if I weren't a journalist and an intensely curious/voyeuristic person, I'd still be like 'whoaaa, this is so cool, I'm actually watching people talk about how they're going to take down Sony'. And then days later, millions of Sony accounts get hacked, causing a worldwide shitstorm. The Sony hacks were stupid, but what was exhilarating was watching the progression of individual hackers and self-proclaimed shitlords come together online for the first time and hatch a global-scale rebellion, against a powerful corporation, a politician, or just some celebrity they don't like (e.g. Justin Bieber/Taylor Swift). It's not something you get to see every day within the peeling confines of your staid, quotidian lecture theatres - teenagers and college students manipulating big agendas. 

Apart from 4chan, I frequently browse LiveLeak, which is a video-hosting website for uncensored content that wouldn't be available to find anywhere else. LiveLeak is the sort of place you go to find the latest uncensored videos of police brutality against black people, the immediate aftermath of an airstrike hitting and maiming Syrian children, the wanton bashing of a woman to death inside a McDonald's located in a bad part of China, gang fights between members of different Colombian drug syndicates, scenes of people being shot during the Paris Attacks, a couple of cruel adolescents in Scotland pissing on a classmate in the schoolyard... It's where you go if you want to stare the cold hard truth of humanity in the face. And accept human nature as it is.

It would sound very sad and very pathetic if I were to just go up to a stranger, or even a friend, and be like 'yeah, I grew up surfing 4chan, LiveLeak, Encyclopedia Dramatica...'. 4chan in particular, obviously has a reputation for being 'the asshole of the internet' and a place where pubescent idiots congregate. But personally, and almost hilariously, I'm a better person for it. I know exactly how fucked up people can be. I know exactly the sort of suffering humans willingly inflict upon each other. And in knowing, seeing, and virtually sensing the full brunt of bigotry, pain and physical or sexual violence around the world, I know that I analyse things more clear-sightedly, and more pragmatically or realistically than other people. 

I see beyond the surface of mainstream media. I learn to question what I'm reading and not simply accept versions of the 'truth' espoused by outlets like The New York Times or The Guardian, which can be ridiculously leftist; CNN, which is journalism's sobriquet for 'international tabloid'; NowThis, whose popular Facebook videos are edited in ways that are often grossly and actively manipulative (please for the love of god treat NowThis as an editorial, not a news source); New Statesman and many other British news publications, (at least in the past) that are dominated by Eton and Harrow educated male editorialists; and well, every media publication because every writer comes with their own bias. Including me, though I try to be as balanced and self-aware as possible. 

Additionally, because I was exposed to a lot of violent imagery when I was young (e.g. my parents making me watch a film on The Nanking Massacre when I was 15 so I got to see dead babies on the street and women being raped by sticks and other foreign objects) is an absolutely pivotal reason why I feel so passionately about human rights and just generally, stories of injustice, and why I chose to pursue journalism and law. When you're so young, and you see a dead boy who was bashed so violently by KKK sympathisers that his entire front face had caved in (Emmett Till), or the puny hunched figure of an emaciated Sudanese baby crawling inches away from a lingering vulture (Kevin Carter's 1994 Pulitzer winning photo), you. Fucking. Change. There was no way I could fathom a future career in finance, banking, or some other blood-sucking industry that won't somehow allow me to address the wrongness I saw in society. Just by the way, I think the finance/banking industry is one giant corrupt as fuck dickhead that needs to be castrated or at least sterilised by some hard-hitting laws. I seriously wouldn't mind going all Saw 1 on some of Wall Street. And I can't help feeling physical disgust towards all my peers who worship Big Banks and Investment Bankers. 

Anyway, the last thing I have to say is that going on all these sites and witnessing or partaking in these brutally honest online exchanges - I've learnt to listen and be empathetic, and soft when I need to be, but savage as fuck when the time beckons. Or perhaps I don't need to be 'savage as fuck', but I've learnt a lot about how to approach people, to stand up for myself tactfully, to learn when to hold back from spraying somebody with expletives or vocabulary they don't understand, to embrace machiavellian social strategy (hitherto only in work life) like winning over the loyalties of your enemies' friends and subsequently overturning power dynamics (lawl), and just in general, being a more realistic and socially attuned person. Also, thanks to that one friend I have who, purely by me observing her, taught me how to be much more 'life smart'/street-smart. 

Having said that, this was just my personal experience, and more likely, those who surfed 4chan as adolescents turn out more immature than mature. But yes, it is certainly a fascinating world. 

#angst

Last night, I accidentally stayed up till 3am reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation. I read 105 pages in 90 minutes and didn't want to stop. Eventually, I put the book away at what must have been an even more ungodly hour, and then went to sleep. I forgot to set an alarm and ended up missing all my classes today, despite having packed my bag already.

That is the price one pays for reading.

Well. Not that I'm too fussed about it. Reading fiction, especially from profound science fiction writers like Asimov, has been a much greater cognitive adventure than anything I've ever found at law school. Which in fact, is setting the bar quite low, because all the things you've ever heard about law school 'stretching the mind' and teaching you 'how to think' is spectacular grade A bullshit.

Law school teaches you how to think - adversarially - systematically - within the boundaries of a legal system. It narrows the scope of your lens so that everything you interpret must either be legal or illegal, right or wrong, black and white. Grossly manichean. Any grey areas are glossed over with whichever perspective best suits the interests of your client. Then - proceed to pursue that line of argument with the zealousness of a stereotypically (and often romanticised) hawk-eyed and ethically decrepit hot-shot lawyer.

On the other hand, the best and most life-changing fiction I've ever read have been firmly focused on challenging systems, questioning the world or society's expectations, and exploring those very real and sensitive grey areas. In exploring grey areas, these stories also describe with great eloquence the unbridled power of emotions and relationships. At the end, it encapsulates the best and worst of human nature, and alerting the reader to the critical importance of empathy.

Yes, empathy, something very lawyerly. *rolls eyes*

Bleh. I'm sorry. Every time I blog now, I end up ranting about how I look down on law students and well, people who are mentally incapable of idolising anybody other than Hugo Boss clad investment bankers or senior law firm partners. If that's you, please fuck out of my life right now. Or better yet, complete mandatory volunteering at homeless shelters and refugee camps so you'll have something to think about when you're sitting behind your antique mahogany desk at Barclays, signing off on a lucrative account with some corrupt as fuck billionaire Chinese CEO. Because I damn well know some of you idealise that lifestyle lel.

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

P.S. just wanted to say that people have every right to worship power and money, but don't expect me to entertain you with my time if you're such a person.

I'm dead

Last night, I felt obliged to attend a Dungeons and Dragons session with my Shanghai study abroad group of friends, and ended up having lots of fun but getting around four hours sleep due to subsequent academic commitments. 

Firstly, D&D is exhausting. You know how many bloody hours it takes to just get out of a cave and go sell some junk for gold pieces? Apparently, three hours. 

Secondly, I was already physically/mentally exhausted, sleep deprived af and would have skipped the night if I hadn't missed the last session a fortnight ago. Our dungeon master (i.e. the game's MC) is a beautiful person who has put hours into designing the campaign and writing up stuff for me to read. 

I would have felt really bad if I missed D&D again, and also, I didn't want to miss out on another three to four hours of campaign progress. After all, I do have the physically strongest character of the team - Harper Lee, a half-elf (half-human) paladin who was once third in command of a legendary mercenary group. I pretty much based Harper on a fusion of the main characters from the medieval fantasy anime Berserk, namely, Gutts, Casca and Griffiths. So yeah. My character is mightily charming, headstrong, and the embodiment of brute strength. 

Anyway. 

I need to die right now. Like, on a bed. All warm and snuggled up. 

With cocaine a cup of hot gen mai tea and a copy of Snow Crash.

But I can't. I have to go meet my friend, who is going to teach me how to use iMovie and edit videos properly (i.e. not have it look like a pile of shitty jump-cuts). 

City of Stars + a scenic drive in Melbourne

I just put all my songs on Spotify to play on shuffle.

How apt that the track to come on right now would be Logic's City of Stars.

The first time I heard that song, I felt like Spike Spiegel, leaning handsomely against the large window of their interplanetary fishing trawler (The Bebop), slow-burning a cigarette, and staring out into a swirling mass of glimmering stars, an insouciant expression hiding deeply felt pangs of existential awe. Spaceships hover in the distance, infinitesimal dots of colour interspersed among the hugeness of the universe. Words cannot possibly describe the feeling, but it tugs profoundly at the heart, and at the parts of the brain which process pleasure.

Anyway.

When I first heard it, I asked my boyfriend to take me on a drive. It was late at night, and with City of Stars pounding through the car's speakers, I felt a strong hedonistic need to see the city lights. We ended up doing a slow drive down Yarra Boulevard, in Kew.

You know. I've never done any drugs (unfortunately). But there are times where I certainly feel like I am on some. This usually occurs when I come across some exquisite concept art, or watch a really visually striking film. Blade Runner. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Tron Legacy. Dark City. 

A conglomeration of colours, evening textures, restrained pacing, and haunting music will make for an overall atmosphere of psychedelic paradise. And I wasn't kidding when I said it tugs at the heart. A physical weight comes over me. The experience, for me, is both extremely cerebral and wonderfully somatic. In other words, it feels fucking amazing on every possible level. 

So we're driving down this winding boulevard next to the Yarra river, and I had turned City of Stars up to dangerous volumes. I had obviously never been down the boulevard before (apparently it's a popular meeting place for drug dealers), and didn't even know such a scenic drive existed.

For a while, we were just driving in darkness. There weren't any lights because the boulevard was technically, located within the Yarra Park reserve. All I could see on either side of the car was bush and shrubbery. Well, black lumps and shadows that swayed against the crepuscular, purplish shade of the night sky.

Then. All of a sudden. Boom.

There it was. The Melbourne skyline, rising majestically above the jagged outlines of the foliage that festooned the entire length of the boulevard. It was like watching an 8-bit cyberpunk city come to fucking life.

The skyscrapers appeared to shoot out of the ground right in front of us. From our elevated perspective, the city indeed looked deceptively close. As the car continued forward, I would crane my neck back, admiring the blue, red, silver lights. And the crane! A brightly lit construction crane, with the construction company's name emblazoned brightly across its shaft, positively glowed against the city backdrop.

Yep. It was like drugs. Or how I imagined MDMA might feel.

Even reminiscing this night is making me feel all sorts of awesome right now.

Oh, and it turns out that Logic's album - The Incredible True Story - the one with City of Stars on it? I could not fucking believe it when I found out.

The entire album is a fictional story set in space, on a spaceship, with a rat-pack crew of friends. One of the characters that speaks before a few of the songs? Is the actual fucking guy who voices Spike Spiegel in Cowboy Bebop (Steve Blum). AND it turns out that Logic is a huge Cowboy Bebop fan.

This is why that album will always be one of my favourites. Or even my favourite album of all time.

Striking up a conversation with my brother: lifetime achievement unlocked

"Hey, so have you read the manga for One-Punch Man?" I asked my brother randomly. We're having dinner at Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant in Glen Waverley, and seated adjacent to a dozen or so old white people having red wine with their sweet and sour pork. Their raucous laughter and Elizabeth Arden perfume hung in the air. 

My brother turned to me and said "Um, no." 

"Well," I continued, sipping my bowl of MSG-laden spare ribs soup, "I read the entire manga for One-Punch Man in one day." 

"Oh," said my brother timidly, but otherwise without any discernible emotion. There was a pause, then he went on. "Did you read the manga before watching the anime?"

"Nah, I watched the anime first. Then I picked up where the anime left off in the manga."

"Oh," said my brother. He picked up a slice of meuniere-doused beef with his chopsticks. 

"Yeah, the manga's only a little bit ahead of the anime. But I know what the next major arc and villain is." 

No response. 

"Don't you want to know what happens next?" I asked. 

"Not really." He grabs a whole heap of garlic spinach. "The anime finished on a pretty solid note. It didn't end on a cliffhanger." 

"Actually, it kindddddd of did. See, the prophecy said that some devastating earth-threatening event wold occur within the next six months, and that clearly wasn't the alien invasion because Saitama defeated them so easily. So the actual event hasn't actually happened yet. We still don't know what it is. I guess it isn't really a 'cliffhanger' but it's still an unanswered question." 

"Hmm. True. Oh well, I'm just going to wait for the anime to come out." 



AND THERE YOU GO. An actual conversation with my brother that lasted longer than 20 seconds. It seems like we're having a lot more of these 'conversations' now. I mean, it may have something to do with the fact that we're inadvertently watching a lot of the same stuff (One-Punch Man; The Legend of Korra), and that I'm now PC gaming.

Yes, you read that right.
Me. Gaming.
Me. The only online games I've ever played seriously are Scrabble and Cartoon Network basketball with your favourite Cartoon Network characters (I was eight years old).

But now, ever since my boyfriend encouraged me to get Steam, I have been completely obsessed with Shadowrun - a strategic turn-based game that relies more on tactical thinking than incessant, reflex-dependent shooting and running. Now that I'm actually super into this game, I've been getting more interested in exploring other genres, especially horror gaming i.e. OUTLAST.

Oh, and back to the dinner, my parents really hated the steamed fish, claiming it was not fresh and probably a dead frozen fish that had been served to us. So you know what my freakin' dad did? He called one of the managers over, and attempted to feed her bits of the fish so she could 'see how not fresh it was.' Like, literally, he got a fork and stabbed a bit of the fish, then held up the falling bits of fish to her face and was like "TRY IT! TRY IT! THEN YOU'LL SEE!"

It was a little bit embarrassing. He even told the manager "YOU MUST HAVE SWAPPED IT FOR A FROZEN ONE IN THE KITCHEN!" To which the manager responded: "Oh my god seriously mister, we are a respectful restaurant business - we would NEVER do that. Believe me." And then walked away.

Yeah, Cantonese people are picky about their fish.

It was 2:20am and in a dark balcony adjoined to a 24 hour shopping complex, I sat cross-legged on a bench, smoking a disgustingly bitter cigarette. It tasted unbearable, but the smell of the burn was intoxicating. It instantly transported me to the brightly illuminated streets of Shanghai - the pollution, the buzz of the cars, the chatter of friends, and of course, the pungent wafts of smoke that drifted around me as they incessantly burned through packets of Double Happiness - the cheapest cigarettes you can buy in China. I smiled, reminiscing the good memories. Shanghai was only two years ago, and while it doesn't feel like a lifetime since setting foot in the winding alleyways and dog-shit-stained pavements of Hongkou district, every day that passes by means a little bit of that incredible, adventurous experience fades. The smells. The lights. The food. The Bund. And most importantly, the people, many of whom I have forged immensely strong friendships with. 

I exhaled, and a long silvery line of smoke snaked its way into the Melbourne air, lingering in front of me for a moment, then disappearing into the night. I stubbed out the cigarette and took out another from my packet. I was thinking that a lot of people are in the same situation as me right now. Young, ambitious, and fearful. 'Fearless' would have been ideal, but honestly, nothing scares me more at this very moment than that feeling of uncertainty about my future and what I will become. I am aware of my peers' achievements, my competition, and my prospects. I am aware of how hard it is to find a job, let alone a job which screams '100% success' and not 'I-settled-for-a-third-rate-option'. I am aware that every minute I spend binging on SBS On Demand (because I don't have Netflix), somebody else at the tender age of 21 is fomenting some brilliant idea for a start-up company, and might be earning a six figure salary within three years of graduation. Or that I have friends younger than I who are apparently killing it trading and investing in stocks. 

I lit my cigarette. Yeah, for someone with a shitload of high self-expectations, it's more than a little bit anxiety-inducing. It's not like my parents even give me that much pressure to do well anymore. Sure, my dad forcibly signed me up as a member of the Labor Party, hoping that this will motivate me to take my first steps towards a trail-blazing political career. And my mum still forwards me her contacts on WeChat, asking me to add them and build up my connections. These are in no way bad things. They are in fact, incredibly good opportunities for me. The pressure that I feel now? That plagues my mind every night I lie in bed, and makes me feel guilty if I'm not constantly networking and adding lines to my CV? It's mostly me - I torture myself over how well everybody else seems to be acing life. But then of course, there's also social media. Facebook, to be exact. If you're a university student, you should know what I'm talking about. 

I leaned back and looked up at the stars. I sighed. Two nights ago, I had finished all episodes of Cowboy Bebop, which if you didn't know, is a hugely iconic anime of the space western and cyberpunk genres. I wished I were Faye, a beautiful bounty hunter that had reawakened from decades of a cryogenic coma. She has the ability to live fully in the present, to start anew, to develop a new identity, and to embark on exciting adventures every single day without having to worry about appeasing anyone. She can travel where she pleases, meet whomever she likes, do whatever she wants - put simply, she is not limited by anything at all, not even herself. And best of all, she gets to live up there, among the stars and the planets. She is surrounded by a supremely vast and infinite beauty. Me? To escape my mental anguish, I had ended up next a K-Mart, a Coles, and an empty food-court.

This is another reason why whenever I feel dissatisfied and trapped, I think of Shanghai. Largely because of the memories, but also because that city in itself is so vast, so luminous, and so lively even in the wee hours of the morning, that I become infected by its energy. I would love being able to take a stroll down the streets at 3am and still be able to see night-hawkers and people playing Mahjong. I think it would actually make me feel happier, and less lonely without being obliged to talk or interact with other people. Plus, street food is the best food. 

Melbourne on the other hand, is boring. It's eerily quiet. Too suburban and too isolated. And ironically, the most suffocating. I'd been sitting on the balcony for a while, but I was surprised to find it had almost been half an hour. 

I stubbed the cigarette out at the receptacle and walked home.

Getting Chicken Pox at 21.

*Pardon the months-long hiatus*

You know what's one of the worst things to happen when you're old? 

Alzheimer's. But apart from fucking Alzheimer's, which is legit a scarier thought than the upcoming Blade Runner remake, there's chicken pox. 

By human lifespans, I am not that old. I'm twenty-one,. But in dog years I'm like fifty, and to little kids, I'm a full grown highfalutin job-working white-collar car-driving robot slave. 

With chicken pox. 

And actually, I'm still on my Ls so I don't even qualify as an official adult. I know, it's pathetic.

Anyway, this week has been the worst time to get chicken pox. As one of the vice presidents at my student club, I had spent literally months organising the first university-wide singing competition to ever be held at our university. I was even going to be the MC, alongside a hyper-energetic young male whose Facebook name consists of a heavy oscillation of Xs and Os. He was really fun to work with when we were preparing the speeches, so I was excited to get to do the actual thing on stage. 

And then I got chicken pox two days before the event.

[insert all-caps curse word]

Not only that, I also had to sell off both mine and my boyfriend's law ball tickets and because I'm an emotional weakling, I offered to sell them both at discounted prices even though there was nothing wrong in principle with charging the original price. [inesrt all-caps curse word].

I also rang up my friend to tell her that due to my illness i.e. looking like a walking topography of volcanoes, I couldn't do the other MC job that I promised to do next Thursday, which was of a state-wide scale and open to the public. 

FUCKING SIGH.

So many missed opportunities. The only silver lining in my personal fiasco is that the singing competition apparently went extremely well - thanks to good organising *wink*. Our sponsorship officer was also great, and managed to get Pappa Rich (you know, the restaurant we all go to when we can't make up our minds) to sponsor at least one prize for every single contestant. Pappa Rich were ecstatic with the exposure they received. We had many other sponsors as well, but our President managed to fuck one of their names up in spectacular comedic fashion. He's a good guy.

Before I end up rambling on and on, and possibly starting a new post, you may be wondering why I write so aggressively. In fact, this is me trying to hold back. If I didn't self-censor, there would be a million 'fucks' all over this page right now. I can't help it. I like swearing and it's what I'm really thinking. I am of course not like this in real life (i.e. verbally swearing all the time), but online, I can do almost whatever I want as long as the privacy settings on this blog are what I think I've set them to. 

The thing is, I don't want to blog to create this wholesome picture of myself for the world. This isn't some sort of marketing tool like LinkedIn to create my own personal brand, although I know that these days, that is a must and I have no escape from such a requirement if I intend to forge a successful career in a big city. 

Neither is this blog some sort of picture blog, or foodie blog, or make-up blog, or fashion blog. This is purely, a writing blog. A journal blog. 

It is a way of airing my insecurities, my truest thoughts and feelings - feeling connected to my (very small pool of) readers, and being free from the politically correct standards of Tumblr's 'cis-gender' population who literally can't function without stopping fifteen times mid-conversation to insert a trigger-warning. 

Ciao.

Getting told off by a random old person on the street

Two weeks ago, I got off the bus in the early evening and walked over to the traffic lights at the intersection near my house.  I had just gotten back from uni and I was starving for sustenance.  I crossed one street with a number of other former bus patrons and then stepped up to the next light and pressed the button to cross the other.  But then I realised something that I had never realised before.  As you all know, there would normally be a small 'red light' above the button to indicate that someone has pressed it.  As I drooped my head to take a closer look, the second light did not have the indicator function at all.  So in a moment of doubt, I thought: 'oh, that's weird. I better press it a few more times just in case.'  Like your typical fidgety teenager, I pushed the button three times in quick succession.  Just, well, you know, to make sure.  No biggie at all.  Nothing to get too excited or worried about.  Not like I was breaking the fucking thing.

Suddenly. 

A gruff, rusty voice with a tinge of belligerence:

"You only need to press it once."

I whipped around and because I had not heard properly, I asked, with a saccharine smile on my face, "Pardon?"

The old white man, with the hunchback, white hair, receding hairline, oxford glasses and shriveled face of irritation, lunges close like a bear and practically spat:

"You only need to press it once."

As he stomped off in the other direction, the lights turned green and a huge line of cars were waiting at the stop.  I had no choice but to cross.  And my erstwhile smile quickly turned into the gritting of teeth.  I was thinking - what the fuck?!??!?!?!  That was so rude.  Wow.  Jezuz.

So in a split second decision, halfway at the crossing, I angrily whipped my head back around and yelled:

"YOU RACIST!"

And then I ran for my bloody lyf.
#YOLOSWAG






Also I'm kidding.  I did not say that.  I just took it like an international student and walked off fuming.

Tonight I'm going to a networking function organised by a commerce and computing club at my university.  It's held at a fancy place near the riverside with no Sidney Samson in sight.  As an arts and law student, the only reason why I'm going to a function that's completely irrelevant to my course is because nothing is ever irrelevant.  You can learn new things from everybody and getting to understand the inner machinations of different industries is always very fascinating.

Sadly, not everyone is able to engage well with people from vastly different backgrounds.  Last year, I went on a major rant about how shitty and boring some of the corporate representatives were.  There were definitely some great talkers but I assume that some of them were chosen to talk to us because alas, they were the most expendable dudes in the workplace.  I'm sure there were a couple of guys/gals who would rather have been sitting at home watching Mad Men or Breaking Bad instead of humouring us uni kids with things like:

"Well, my day to day responsibilities include..."
"A day in my life starts off with a bowl of cheerios, taking the tram to ...."

Basically, they're there on the orders of their boss who reasonably decided it'd be good having a person promote the company to a bunch of wide-eyed uni kids.  Brand recognition yo.

But seriously.  Some of those reps were ridiculously shy or completely not social for someone whose job for the night was supposed to be networking.  No matter how many questions I bombarded that guy from the IT company with (can't remember which one), he'd just give me really boring cookie-cutter answers that made his job sound like a grey-scale painting.  Not only did he ignore the fact that I wasn't doing anything IT related at uni and therefore couldn't understand any of the esoteric software shit he was spewing out for the whole night, he didn't even seem to TRY to be enthusiastic and amiable - just polite.  Polite as in "sure, I'll answer your questions" but not "I'll answer your questions and I'll tell you about some really interesting developments in the IT industry!  Did you know..."

Like. Just.  He had no initiative.  And perhaps a reason for that is my course and that I was a first year last year.  But still - it was such a shitty conversation.  I ended up having a really great conversation with a guy who worked at Deloitte (I think it was) and actually responded to me by telling me about all this great social media stuff the company was doing in China and Asia because I was taking Asian studies.

See, the IT guy might not have had that interesting a job in the first place, but surely he should have understood that our conversation wasn't just limited to his work responsibilities.  It could also have included interesting stories or news he can impart to me as a 'mentor'.

Sometimes, it does surprise me when I meet older people ('adults') in a professional setting who don't seem to have excellent social/speaking skills.  But now I realise that I've probably been setting too high a bar.  They were young, some of them in their early twenties, and they were probably a bit disgusted with us first years - all gushing about Deloitte and KPMG and all.  Also, not everyone's an ace debater or an avid news junkie (not that I'm referring to myself lel) or Barack Obama super confident, sociable and brimming with charm even if they are working at a big company.

I guess I'll see how tonight's reps compare with those I met last year.

Why law kids are stressin' out. More than med kids.

The honourable Justice Kirby, arguably Australia's most prominent high court judge, once told a lecture theatre packed with wide-eyed and idealistic Monash law students: "The rate of depression among law students is five* times higher than that for medical students."  

*or maybe it was three

Was that surprising?  Well - yeah, cos you know, med kids have no social lives.  But I was WRONG.  See, med kids might not have social lives but law students just don't have lives.  According to Kirby, a surprisingly high number of us have thought about suicide, self-harm or experienced depression.  Or borderline depression.  I don't remember his exact words.  Basically, it was bad news for us.

Why are we worse off?  A number of reasons were given.  For example, med kids often work in smaller classes where they get to build closer friendships with their classmates and not feel as pressured to compete against the rest of their entire cohort; but for law students, it's the exact opposite.  There's around 200 students per lecture and we're explicitly told that we're going to be competing against 400 others in the exam, some of which are worth 100% of the semester's mark.  

Everything is about competition at law school - mooting, debating, client interview competitions.  Unlike med school where it's really just "make sure you do well", we are encouraged to pit ourselves against our peers and own the fucking shit out of them.  THAT'S HOW YOU WIN AT LAW SCHOOL, YOU OWN EVERYBODY'S ASSES (and taking part in lots of extra-curricular activities).  

Then of course, there are law students who were top students at their high school, ending up being mediocre or less than that at law school where everyone else is just as smart or smarter.  It shatters their ego and destroys their confidence.  They end up demotivated.  Lost.  Wanting to give up.

And I think that's what a lot of my friends have been feeling lately.  They've gone from 90%+ marks in high school to credits and passes at law school - terms that have been alien to them since forever.  And what heightens the disappointment is when you look at your academic record and it's like: 

Arts subjects: HD, HD, D

Legal subject: P

Yeah, pretty freaking sad.  And when all your friends are like "nah I'm dropping out of law" or "I'm going to take just commerce units this semester, need to boost my confidence" - I'm like.... holy shit.  What are we doing???!?!!?    WHUT R WE DOINGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.

My friend, who had his confidence dashed after his last exam results, told me he's dropping law for an economics degree today.  I was, yeah, kind of REALLY shocked.  And even worse, he's like:

"Well, law degrees are hard and time consuming.  If you're making the effort to graduate with a law degree, you've got to get excellent marks otherwise it's useless, at least for finding a job in the legal industry.  So people who take law are people whose first preference is to get a job in law.  Why should I continue with my law degree?  I'm not paying 3000 dollars per unit per semester for something I don't even really like."

Aw my gawd.  

I hope he's happy with the decision he's made.  I sincerely hope he never regrets it. 

As for me, I've always wanted to study law but I do feel the pressure mounting.  I can't be lazy anymore.  I've got to organise my time well and exploit all my resources - including lecturers and tutors.  I have to keep in mind why I'm doing law, all those brilliant ideals about changing the world I had back in high school.  It's just hard when you're not getting good marks and when you know you're up against a huge cohort of really, really smart people.

It's intimidating.  

I had footage on my phone so:

What happened - ♫ LAST FRIDAY NIGHT ♫

*Also I realised it's REFUGEE ACTION COLLECTIVE* typo forgive me lel.