So basically… I miss home like a spoilt baby. :(

On Sunday I had diarrhoea, and yesterday was the first day of that time of the month. They’re certainly not a big deal. Life goes on. But they’re just things that I have always dealt with in the comfort of my own home. I could crawl into bed any time I like, or block everyone out if I feel sick enough. Come to think of it, I can do the same at the student house. In fact, I can do it without being nagged at incessantly. Maybe what I miss more is being cared for. My dad would make guava leaf tea for me when I have an upset stomach, mom would nag when I try to sleep it off but she’d ask me to take whatever health supplements that suit the situation.

At home, I won’t run out of fresh towels. At home, there is a shelf-full of tea leaves and coffee powder that I never even glance at but desperately miss right now. At home, there is everything I could ever need and more.

From the way I am speaking (or writing), I sound like I won’t see home for at least another month. Fortunately that’s not the case, I am going home tomorrow and I am downright excited! This time, it’s not so much Chinese New Year I am looking forward to but just one night in my own bed. I am sufficiently excited about CNY though. I am just about to go broke so there isn’t a better time for me to be receiving angpaus. :D

With my new (and growing) hair length, I now have a host of hair-related problems. My unlayered curtain of hair is not as bouncy as it used to be. I have to braid my hair before I exercise (not that I do all that often, but still) and it is restrictive during. My neck feels extremely sticky on hot days, especially when I don’t have hair ties with me. I now spend so much more time in the shower, shampooing and then conditioning (I used to skip the latter when I had a more manageable length). My hair takes forever to dry and the weight pulls on my scalp.

But the worst of all, is my alarming hair fall rate. I know studies show that 50 strands a day is normal but it is not normal for me. I didn’t use to have loose strands of hair tangled in my hands when I carelessly combed through my hair, or when I shampooed my hair, or when I played with my hair. Now I’ll breathe a sigh of relief when it doesn’t happen. It may not seem like a big deal to some people but let me assure you that it is very scary when you see a fresh pile of hair on the toilet strainer after a shower. Imagine if I begin balding at eighteen!

The obvious solution is to chop off my hair and hope that the hair loss will eventually plague me less persistently. But not yet. I haven’t had my fill of long hair, and it is not at my desired length yet. One more year and I promise I will get that drastic hair cut and donate my hair to charity. For now, I am going to braid burn dye my hair any way I like. No, I’m kidding. I’m not going to intentionally burn my hair.

I just want people to know not to be offended by my silence, it’s hardly ever intentional.

Anyway, Falling Leaves is basically an account of Adeline as an unwanted Chinese daughter. It catalogues her childhood through to her adult years, her relationships with her father, stepmother, aunt and siblings, bits of historical changes in China, her love life and most of all, her emotional growth. In all honesty, I hated the book. Let me explain. At first, I simply disliked the narration but I was still sympathetic to the young Adeline growing up in the face of such meanness. There was an abruptness in the way she wrote that rubbed me wrong. More than that was the tone she used throughout the book, as though she was always the victim. The more I read, the more she sounded like a martyr. The worst part was the fact that it made me feel guilty for feeling that way. It was a biography that I disliked, a true story, something someone has really gone through. What am I but an unfeeling person if I have no empathy for her?

It is true that she has gone through a lot of emotional suffering and perhaps this is the way she deals with that pain. I don’t begrudge her that. I can relate. After all, I write about things that make me sad too. Probably in some way, I see myself in her. English is her second language. She is the youngest in the family before her step-siblings came along. She longs for emotional fulfillment. She keeps setting herself up for disappointment. The single most discernible difference is that her sufferings are at least 10 times greater than mine. So with that one book, Adeline has not only taken away so many hours of my life but my right to complain about my life as well.

Believe me, I feel awful giving this book a bad review. Who does that to a biography? But while reading the book, I have doled out disgust for nearly every major character in the book, including the author. There was a lack of depth to the characters, despite them being real. Then again, portraying someone you know is probably harder than it sounds — you never really know someone that well. So that I can forgive. What is completely unforgivable is the faultlessness of the narrator (also author). Her greatest fault was that she constantly yearned for approval from her evil stepmother despite her being well, evil. She simply failed to mention any of her own flaws while highlighting everyone else’s, except for Aunt Baba whom she loved dearly. It makes me doubt the truth of her words. There were many conflicts in the book and with her lack of frankness, I found myself not believing her side of the story as much as I should. That made it a difficult read.

Ok I’m more or less done with ranting about the book. Now I shall get started on the second item on my reading list: Desert Flower by Waris Dirie.

Alright, that sounds a lot more serious than it really is. I won’t do anything irrational and I do have proper outlets for these sort of emotions, one of it I am performing right now. Maybe I am blowing things out of proportion, it’s just that after all these years of ‘loving’ and accepting myself for who I am, I have forgotten to try to be better, or simply to try. I told myself I am not fat, that a few extra pounds is worth the good food I can have, that being able to eat the things my sister abstains from in her face is worth it. And you know, most of the time it really is. That, however, shouldn’t stop me from exercising. I haven’t even gotten any kind of exercise for the entire month, and that’s where the self-loathing arises. It’s not from the fact that I think I’m not slim enough but from the fact that I can’t make myself try.

I know, I know, how stupid of me to be complaining about not doing something instead of just doing it, right? I don’t even know how to justify myself. I don’t even want to. I mean, if I were able to I wouldn’t feel like this in the first place. Exercising is only a small section of this particular picture. There is also that really depressing feeling I get when I think about reading anything I have written in the past, be it a week or three years ago. It is why so many of my blog posts don’t make it past the proofreading stage. All the essays I have been proud of I want to rip apart or throw into the fireplace (if I had one). Sometimes, I am arrested by this urge to delete my blog and begin over. That is an entirely new notion to me. I have deleted a blog before, one that I began when I was in primary school I believe, but I have never thought of the day that I might delete this one. It is so much time and effort that I have poured into, something that grows and does not deplete. Why on earth would I ever want to erase all of that? I thought. Well, gee molly, now I finally understand why other writers and bloggers have done it.

Sigh. It probably has a lot to do with the unproductive holiday I have had. I’ll get around to feeling better about myself once college begins. I feel sick to the stomach just thinking about proofreading this so I’ll leave that for another time. Do excuse any grammatical errors.

edit: Ok I did proofread this in the end. Perfectionism was here before any kind of self-loathing.

I suppose now is as good a time as any for the annual year end reflection, but I don’t know what to say. I think at some point during the year I lamented that time passed too quickly, that in the blink of an eye it’s March already, then October, then December. I say think because I can’t be sure. Right now, I harbour complete opposite opinion of the speed at which time is marching at. I cannot wait for 2011 to be over. Even three days is too long to sit through.

The worst part about this year is how stagnant everything has been. I spent 2 months in National Service camp learning nothing, waiting for time to pass. I did have a lot of fun there, met lots of people, got out of my comfort zone a bit but it wasn’t real. It was just a really long vacation in which I wasn’t allowed to sleep in, ever. Maybe it’s just me, but I left the camp a same person, except more tanned and funnily enough, 2kg heavier. After having lived with the friends I made in camp for 2 months (it seemed like a really long time while in there), I wondered how I would survive without them. When I got back home, I quickly realised that the people were only a small part of what I missed. They were people I have only known for only two months, which is practically nothing compared to most of the high school friends I still keep in touch with. What I really missed was not having to worry about uncertainties. Remember, when I was in camp, SPM results were not yet released, college was still a vague picture in my head. I had (have) big dreams but I wasn’t sure if I would ever make it out of the country. Being in camp meant not worrying about any of that and that was what I missed most when I got home. Even though it was wonderful to be able to have long hot showers again, it was like walking into a crushing pot of pressure and anticipation.

Post-NS days were relaxing to a certain extent, in that I could lounge about in the house and my parents would be sympathetic. But again, it was a standstill. I was simply waiting for SPM results, and then for the UTM and JPA interview, then for that one-week stint at TARC, then the interview outcome. Then I continued waiting, now for July so that I could enroll in KBU. It was just one thing after another. Always waiting. Very unlike last year when I was grasping for any time I could.

That’s not to say that I didn’t utilise the time spent waiting. I did things I couldn’t do excessively while in high school. I went for art classes and tennis lessons, I read day and night, I watched countless movies and TV shows. But… my time could have been better spent. I don’t exactly regret what I did (or did not do) this year since it was a conscious choice that I made: to watch as many movies as I can and read just as many books. Basically I wanted a break between high school and hectic college life to do what I love. I guess I got what I wished for.

That kind of sort of wraps up 2011. This was not a year of learning or new revelations, and not much of success in soul-searching either. I am, however, fully recharged and (somewhat) eager to jump back onto the academic treadmill, exams and all. There weren’t too many messy emotional breakdowns this year. In fact, I think I have made peace with certain… matters of the heart. All things considered, this year has been pretty good. So there, bring it on 2012.

PS: There are many, many things I have not mentioned, i.e. my family, studies, Architecture, friends, life away from home, the books and movies that have changed me, and so much more. But if I were to write about everything, I probably won’t get up from this chair for another hour or two and I really need that nap, so this will have to do.

1. Pendrives.

2. Starbucks napkins.

3. Stationery (i.e. mechanical pencils, pens, erasers and rulers).

4. Random scraps of paper.

5. Another book.

6. My phone.

7. Kitchen rubber bands.

8. Hair ties and hair bands.

9. Cards.

10. My finger, of course.

What a way to increase readership.

Since we’re on the topic of search engine terms and ’tis the season of sharing, let me share with you the all time most popular search terms that led to my blog:

It’s almost funny.

Moving on, today is Christmas Eve, as if the title isn’t obvious enough. As usual I am home and not out celebrating. I don’t mind so much the being at home but I think it’s the not celebrating that gets me, every time. Christmas has never been a religious holiday to me because my church does not celebrate Christmas (nor Easter for that matter), so the holiday is really a commercial affair. It shouldn’t hold any meaning for me, except it does. Despite not having properly celebrated it in so many years, it is still supposed to be special in so many ways, the least of which should be people coming together. Yet, every year my family drifts a little bit further apart and Christmas Eve is when this is most perceptible, ironically because of the holiday cheer all around.

I miss how the days leading up to Christmas used to be at home about ten years ago. Christmas tree and deco in the corner of the living room. Those were simpler times, even if slightly paganistic.

Basically, I feel lonely on Christmas Eve, maybe not every year but definitely this year.