Hey guys,

Okay, the title is a bit heavy.  You're going to understand why in a second.

Now, before I start, I almost wish I could tell you that I'm mixed race or something like that, but I'm not.  It would make it so much easier, to be honest.  If anything, if feels almost like my mind is mixed.

You see, I'm Chinese.  Full Chinese.  But I was born and raised in Canada.  One of the two "Hong Kong"s of Canada, even.  So, you would probably immediately figure that I would know how to speak, understand, and maybe read a little Chinese. Problem is: I don't.  Sure, I went to Chinese school as a kid, but not nearly as long as some others.  Though, I'm not entirely sure how far Chinese classes go.  I may have gotten most of the years in, if I'm lucky.  Even if I did, it still probably wouldn't have done much because of what I'm about to tell you next.

My dad is also full Chinese and was born and raised in Canada.  For some reason, though, his parents also spoke to him in English.  So, somehow, knows less Chinese than I do.  When I was younger, I had more exposure to the Chinese language.  My maternal grandmother only knew how to speak Chinese, my babysitter only knew how to speak Chinese, my mom, who is an immigrant, even spoke more Chinese and watched Chinese dramas then.  But for some reason, fast forward into my high school and university years, my dad decides that he doesn't like the Chinese shows she watches and complained about them all the time to the point where my mom actually stopped watching them.  My grandmother passed away, and my babysitter went back to live with her daughter.  My general exposure to the language was almost entirely gone.  I still have people here and there who will speak to me in Chinese, but not nearly as much as before.  I don't hear the language around me as much.  When my brother was born, for some reason, my mom spoke to him in English more because "he didn't understand", but given enough time, he would have just as I did.

So, here I am in my twenties.  I look Chinese, but I can only speak and understand a little.  I can't read or write enough to get a full sentence.  And I'm terrified that when I'm older, my mom will revert back to speaking Chinese, and I won't be able to communicate effectively with her.  People talk to me in Chinese in either Mandarin or Cantonese because they see my face and immediately think that I would understand.  And, in my mind, I feel like I should.  Cantonese anyway.  But I don't and I hate it.  I feel like I'm living with two cultures fighting inside of me, and I suppose I am.  I excelled in my English classes and graduated university with a Bachelor's of Arts in Honours English.  Don't get me wrong.  I love it and I'm incredibly proud of that.  But many other Chinese students have trouble with English classes and actually have pretty good communication in Chinese.  I feel like, at this point in my life, I should be bilingual but I'm not.  It's like I put on a face that says one thing when really I'm another.  But, I don't...it's just...my face.

The worst part of it all is that when I try to learn Chinese by watching the televisions series, I tend to gravitate more towards English shows simply because they're easier to understand.  It's so frustrating.

I wish I could have brought something lighter to the blog today, but this was just on my mind and needed to get out.  Hopefully, the next post will be easier.

Dusk

I've never been good at small talk.  It just isn't something I do.

If you try to talk to me, it'll seem like I don't really want to talk.  What I don't want is to go into idle prattle because I don't know how to handle or navigate it.  It's devoid of meaning and I mentally can not grasp how it works or how to continue the conversation from what seems to me to be dead end questions.  I never intend to sound uncaring or unapproachable, I literally just don't know how to turn the little statements or questions into more than just that.  If I'm asked a question with a simple answer, that's normally what I give it.

I do feel bad and I don't always know what to say, but it happens.  I have no intentions of being rude if I've just met you and this is the direction in which our conversation seems to be headed it's just me being uncomfortable.  If you want to start an actual discussion, it's easiest for me if you just jump into it.  Ask me if I've read a book and if I haven't tell me about it.  Tell me what you liked, what you didn't.  I might come up with something similar as well as a suggestion for you to look at in the future and likewise.  Maybe a film or something else that interests you.  For me to take part, I need more to work with than "How are you"s and "what's new?"

I do realise that this may be difficult for the person with whom I am trying to converse as well as it is for myself, but I honestly don't know how to make small talk work.  It's one of society's weird mannerisms that I will never understand and perhaps never be able to get to work in my favour.  Even when I was taking the final test for my driver's licence, I never asked such small questions to try to keep myself calm.  I asked the examiner why he does what he does and why he chose or ended up with it.  It was something that I could dig more into, something that I could get more information from to create more discussion.  In turn, he would be able to ask me what I want to do, am doing, what my motivations are and I could ask him similar inquiries.  Topics like these, I can work with.  If you simply ask me what I'm doing in school and if I want to be a teacher, my answers will be short and sweet.  I get the same questions all the time and I hate them.  I never know what to do or say.  It's awful.

This, I think, is why I'm not the best suited for things like customer service or human resources work.  It's not something I can care enough about to make it sound good.  ESPECIALLY with customer service situations where I will need to run off to retrieve something for a customer because I will repeat the same, "Hi, how are you?  Did you find everything okay?" routine to people I've already droned it out to without realising until after the fact.

I don't know where this puts me in terms of which jobs I'd be good for, but I can tell you that I've done pretty well so far in conversing with my professors and peers about different academic, homework-related, and peer-related topics.  Whether it means I should strive for something like academia or writing in general, I don't know, but I think I might do okay in them given different topics to work with.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is small talk confuses me.  It confounds me.  I don't know what to do and I flounder when people try to approach me with it.  I don't know if I'll ever know what to do with it and I'm sorry to anyone who tries to use it with me.

Hi guys,

It's time for another personal post.

Late tonight, my sister, my mom, and myself were all talking and we happened upon our plans for the weekend which involve a get together with some family for a cousin's birthday.  In talking about it, my mom mentioned who was going and how my aunt (the middle sister out of three, my mom being the eldest) would not be there.  I told her that it was a shame because I do genuinely like this family although a good portion of the rest of the family doesn't seem to understand them or really try, I find.  When I voiced my disappointment and told her how I actually quite enjoy the company of my younger cousin in the family--we'll call her Stevie--she said, "you do?" in complete disbelief and my sister laughed at my mother's response.  The thing is, some in this family do not immediately come across as the most personable people to many, but once you talk to them and hang out with them enough, they are incredibly pleasant to be around and Stevie is no exception.

You see, there was a point in time where my mom and her siblings thought it would be a good idea to rent a large cottage for a week so that we could all spend some time together and actually start being more of a family.  One of my cousins and I were excited, but also apprehensive since it was a full week and there was definitely a chance that we could quickly grow sick of each other.  Luckily, that didn't happen.  At least, we weren't sick of everyone present (this is the side of the family that one uncle I don't like is on).  The idea of this week-long cottage trip was to force us all to act more like a family since we don't all live that close together and only see everyone once or twice a year.  I don't know if it worked well for anyone else, but I found that it brought me and this one sister's family closer together.  I talked more with my cousins--one of which I already talk to more often than all others--as well as my aunt and uncle.  This is where I learned that, although strict and somewhat temperamental, my aunt is pretty cool and my uncle is actually really interesting.  But what I found most important and most interesting was that Stevie opened up to me.  We started talking more and after a big downpour, she called me to come outside because she and her older brother--Ashton, we'll call him--were catching frogs and she wanted me to join them.  At this point in time, it has been years since I felt this close to them again.  We used to play a lot when we were younger, but as they years went on, she started to distance herself from my siblings and myself to the point where she sort of shut everyone out, it felt like.  Having her open up again was fantastic.  I loved it.  Unfortunately, the week just wasn't enough to get her to open up anymore, so after we parted at week's end, we didn't see each other again for at least half a year resulting in her distancing herself again.  On top of this, family get-togethers are, at best, biannual making it extremely difficult for us to make the same connection we had at the cottage.  Since then, I've been hoping that she'd open up again, but it doesn't look like it will happen.  After the second cottage trip two years ago, my family decided that we won't be doing it again.

Now, if my family had made the effort and tried to connect with my aunt and Stevie the way I had, I think they would change their minds about them, but I often feel like our mindsets are just too different and that they would never try.  As pessimistic as this sounds, I think, unfortunately, that this is probably the most realistic chain of events simply because of how my family seems to work.  Don't get me wrong, I do like a lot of my family on my mom's side, but their attitude towards certain people really turn me off because they never really give them a chance.  It really feels like the popular kids judging and excluding the less popular.  But don't think that I'm trying to hold myself up above them as some sort of saint for hanging out with whom I can only describe, in this scenario, as the underdog because that's not what I'm trying to do.  I have my faults too and I'll admit that I'll do this also with different kinds of people.  It's something we all do.  As human beings, we can not help it.  I'm just drawn to this particular cousin because I think the two of us might have more in common than we think.  It's just a matter of reconnecting and finding out what these things are.  I just wish the rest of my family would give her a chance because her separating herself from everyone else is not an act of believed superiority at all.  If anything, it's more like the family is excluding her because they don't understand her which really sucks.  It feels like she really needs a friend at these gatherings and I really want to be it because she is incredibly cool, but no one else sees that because she's different from them.  In many ways, I guess I am too and that's why I like her.  I just wish it were easier to be inclusive of everyone at the same time, but everyone at these gatherings are just so different that it's impossible.  One literally must go from group to group, just like in school.  The only problem is that moving through the crowd at these gatherings is much less fluid than it was for me in school.  I can only hope that I learn to do it at the gatherings soon because I really want to be there for Stevie.

I guess we'll just have to see how this weekend goes.  I really wish they could make it.  Next time, I suppose.

That's all I have for tonight.  I just needed a good rant.

Hope you all are doing well.

I'll see you in my next post,
Dusk

Uncle at a family gathering, almost every adult has defaulted to speaking Chinese.

Uncle: English, please!

My thoughts: You're damned lucky everyone else here would bother to cater to you. 

He also doesn't like Chinese food, so we have to cook a separate plate of food just for him. 

Uhm, hello?! Chinese family.  You knowingly married into it.  You're the odd one out here, so if anyone needs to conform here, it's you.  Why should we cater to you, huh?  Give me one good reason.  That's right, there isn't one.  Quit acting like a freaking BABY and get OVER yourself!

If you EVER come over to my house and I have kids by that point in time, you'd better damn well be better behaved than them!  If you're not, if you're still going to be a whiny little stink hole, you know what I'm going to say to you?  The exact.  Same.  Words.  That you said to me when I said that I wanted to lose some weight: Oh. Wah.

I will cook a Chinese meal.  I will NOT cook you a separate dish because you're a whiny little prick!  If you complain, I will tell you, "In this household, you eat what is put in front of you, or you don't eat at all because there are people out there who aren't fortunate enough to even HAVE food so readily available for them." 

Then, I will turn to my kids and ask them, "Isn't that right, kids?" and turn back to face you with the most acid-filled smile you have EVER seen IN YOUR LIFE!

So, don't you freaking complain. 

My uncle bragging to my dad about how cool my uncle's camera is.

Dad: We have the same camera

Uncle: ...My lens is bigger.

My thoughts: Yeah, but you can't use it properly.

Dude, I totally know what you're trying to say with that stupid lens of yours.  Both of our sentences have double entendres and I totally mean both implications in my sentence.

That feeling
Of never being just right.
Never good enough
No.
Never good enough for the people around you.
The people around me.

I'm not smart enough
Not fast enough
Not pretty enough
Not normal enough.

My clothes are too dark.
My hair is too flat.
I don't wear enough makeup.
I don't wear any makeup.

I'm not good at anything
I'm not good at everything.

My mind is too different.
My thoughts are too strange.
My ideas are too abnormal.

I'm not normal.
What is normal?
Nobody is normal.

I am myself.
I am what I want today
I'll be what I want tomorrow
I will do what I want
To be what I want.

I am myself.
I am
Me.

Hello All,

Today, I thought I would share with you one of the experiences I've had with sexist jerks.

Last night, I went out after skating with my best friend and the guy that is supposed to be the skate patrol.  I say, "supposed to be" because I find that he is so lacking in his job that it is sad and ridiculous that the town even hired him. 

You see, as skate patrol, he is supposed to be authoritative and, basically, be the safety regulator of the ice.  But, he neither wears the jacket allowing people to see him, nor is authoritative enough to have people listen to him.  Last night proved that he does not know what he's to be doing nor is he worthy of such a job.  It may not be the best paying job, but to be a safety regulator, you would expect that the town would hire somebody with 1. basic CPR and First Aid skills and 2. knows how to at least handle a crowd, I mean, that's what this entire job is about.

Somebody fell and blacked out on the ice last night, and he did not even know enough to clear the crowd off of the ice for when the paramedics were to show.  Instead, my dad, best friend, and I took over that.  My best friend is a life guard and the moment he saw that she was down, he went into full life guard mode.  Sure, the skate patrol person called the paramedics, but he could have should have cleared the crowd off of the ice.  Even more-so, he should know how to handle these sort of situations in general.

After skating, skate patrol guy, my best friend, and I went to Starbucks.  At some point in time, this guy says, and looks straight at me as he does so, "Girls always never know what they want."  For a moment, I stop to think back and try to find a time where I didn't know what I wanted.  Sure, there have been a few times, but everyone goes through that.  Then, being the tick that he is, he says, "See?  You don't know what you want."

How the Hell does he know that?  He doesn't know what's going on in my head.  I should have retaliated.  I should have said, "I know what I want.  I want to punch you for that comment and walk away.  I want to tell you that you suck at your job.  I want to tell you that ever since I've seen you 'take over' as skate patrol, I knew you wouldn't be good for the job.  I wanted to take over your job since I've seen your smug, dirty little face set foot on the ice as skate patrol.  I would too, if I didn't go to school in another city.  But, most of all, I know that I do NOT want you to reproduce and pass on that disgusting mindset of yours to your potential offspring."

I also should have thrown a punch at him and missed, let him go with a warning.  Should have told him, "Next time, I will not miss.  You know why?  Because I will want to hit you even more the next time around.  Do not cross me again.  Do you understand?"  Of course, my best friend and this know-it-all jerk haven't seen me this angry.  I don't expect much of any sort of reaction from him.  I would repeat myself, "I said, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"  When he answers, I would tell him, "That is why nobody listens to you on the ice," and walk away.  I don't know if my friend would follow me.  If he would tell that lowly turd that he went too far.  But, I would hope that he would.

I'm sorry about the crazy rant-style post today.  I just really needed to get that off my chest.  I also really need to go back to TKD to let the stress and anger out. 

I thank you, folks, for listening.  I hope next time I post will not be because I'm angry.

I hope you're all doing better than I am at the moment.

Until next time,
Dusk

I've never wanted to become a teacher.  Never. 

My parents, for some reason can see me becoming one in the future, but I can't.  Mostly because of how they always put teachers down.  They do admit that there are good teachers out there that care about their students and what not.  But, you know what?  I can't talk in front of people, I can't teach well, and I don't want to be one of those people that gets lumped into a generalization so that I can be told that I'm useless.  That I do nothing, and that I complain all the time about not being paid enough.

Maybe I wouldn't be one of those teachers, but who knows?  Either way, I don't want to be one.  The big problem is, a lot of people don't always end up doing what they want to, and I don't even know what I want to do.

If I end up being a teacher, whether I'm looked down on or not, I would want to be a philosophy teacher.  I'd tell the kids that life is pointless.  That, society is pointless.  Getting a job is pointless.  But, most of all, I'd tell them that school is pointless.  It's a big, pointless, brainwashing facility where they make kids think "inside the box."  They don't allow much freedom in thought or exploration.  What is being learned at school is pointless.  I'd only encourage them to come to class to learn how to think.  That's what the kids need.  They need to know how to think critically.  It's true.

They need to be able to recognise that they don't need all this cyclic, pointless work.  People are too focused on material things.  That's the whole reason why society runs the way it does.  They tell you that you want something, that you love it, and finally, that you need it.  But, you don't.  You don't, but they won't let you see it that way.  No.  That's the whole reason for people having jobs.  So, they can have money to buy these things that they don't need.  Even if we did want something, why do we need to pay for it?  Why do we need money?  Now, I'm not a thief, I don't steal.  I do pay for things.  But, I don't see a reason for it.

We pay to get food, when, in the past, we would have been able to get the food ourselves.  We'd be hunting and eating like all the other creatures out there.  We've been sucked into this hyperreality, and there's almost no way out of it unless we can think against it.  Think outside of it.

I'm not encouraging people to be thieves or to go around vandalizing things or skip school and not to bother getting a job no matter how much it sounds like I am.  All that I want, is to have people realise that they might not need what they think they do, what society thinks they do and programmed them to think they do. 

I simply want people to be able to think for themselves instead of having something like the government telling them what to think.

Why do I always end up with crap roommates?  Does this ENTIRE school year hate me or something? 

I'm not even at school anymore, but I'm living with people I can't stand.  It sound harsh, especially since what we're doing is staying at a cottage for a week with all of Mom's side of the family...well, just her siblings and their kids.  But, we just got here, and her youngest sister is with us.  Her 2nd husband, I suppose, is such a power-tripping chauvanist.  I mean, we get into the cottage, settle a bit and all I hear is, "No kids here, don't do this, women doing this..." BLAH, FREAKING BLAH! 

The worst thing is that this is only the beginning.  We just got here today and we're here for a week.  Somebody save me? Dx

I'm already in a horrible mood after that.  I'm hiding out in my room refusing to go downstairs or anything because I don't want to deal with people.  A few more people are coming tomorrow and I don't know when everyone else is supposed to be here. 

Of all the things he could be though, does my uncle really have to be like that?  If he shoos me away telling me, "No kids here."  I'm going to give him something to think about.  I mean, I'm 19!  I'm legally an adult.  Yes, he's my elder.  Yes, I should be respecting him too.  But, although younger, we deserve to be treated with respect and dignity too.  I mean, dear God!  We are people too.  We are here to have a good time, and the first thing he does is piss me off. 

Yeah.  Thanks a lot.

Looks like I'm going to be hiding out in my room a lot this week.  I'll keep you guys updated on how this all goes.

Wish me luck, and I really hope you guys are having a better time wherever you are than I am.

Dusk