July 2014 – michelle teoh

Disruption of the Arrangement of Life

I just finished reading Every Day by David Levithan (3 out of 5 stars, wouldn’t really recommend unless you’re in for a casual, mindless read) and one of the quotes was “There are many things that can keep you in a relationship,” I say. “Fear of being alone. Fear of disrupting the arrangement of your life. A decision to settle for something that’s okay, because you don’t know if you can get any better. Or maybe there’s the irrational belief that it will get better, even if you know he won’t change.”

The context of the quote is irrelevant to what I’m about to write concerning exactly what the title suggests, of the disruption of the arrangement of my life.

I don’t know where this adamant belief came from, nature or nurture I really cannot be sure, but I know for a fact that even since young, I believed the existence of a fixed blueprint for each of our lives. And mine was aligned with my ideas of perfection: good grades all throughout my academic pursuits, a professional job with stable income, setting up a family…it seems like a stereotypical path to take but it didn’t seem that way to me then. 10-year-old me believed that everyone’s goals were ultimately the same as mine, the only difference is that some manage to achieve it while others fail. So I was determined as hell to get it right for myself. I didn’t see the end goal as a solid prospect, but rather the entire process as a straight line that never diverges, not a single speck of dust out of line. I guess I was indoctrinated to hold onto these ideals.

I know better about fixed blueprints and paths now, but it still didn’t lessen the strict straight linear path I’d set for myself; it stuck with me until now. That’s why any rule-breaking gives me huge bouts of anxieties. Any out-of-line, unpredictable and spontaneous activity literally makes me break into cold sweat. It didn’t even have to be remotely dangerous or threatening, but if it’s something out of my preliminary agenda, my “fixed blueprint” that I don’t see coming, it terrifies me. I think there is a dab of perfectionism associated with this in the sense that I was afraid that these “outliers” might tarnish the ideal route I’d set for myself to reach my “Ultimate Goal in Life”, capital-U, capital-G, non-capital I because of capitalization rules, and capital-L.

That’s why I’ve always played it safe. Safe choices, safe ideas, safe actions. Nothing too drastic that I won’t be able to change in the near future. Not doing things based on desire and hunches because “it’s not right”. Not in the Agenda. That’s why doing little “rebellious” things like waking up at 3AM to watch the Olympics (when I should be sleeping in preparation for school the next day) and taking a short drive alone in the neighbourhood (when I should be heading home straight away) feels so exhilarating. To anyone else, it might not even bat an eyelid but to me it felt like I was going against currents, for once. It’s weird to talk about this, something I’ve kept to myself all this while, conversations and arguments I have with myself whenever I face conflicts regarding actions to take for or against this “blueprint” and/or going against what I had really wanted to do at the moment. I guess this isn’t entirely a bad thing, and in fact might be applauded by many for being cautious and self-preservative…but there’s also the dissent within myself of not being able to do the things I want just because they are not “conventional”, because they might “disrupt the orderly arrangements” of my life. Like solid to liquid. Packed, orderly arranged particles gaining energy and losing their fixed patterns, dissolving into fluids that resemble nothing, well, solid.

No one ever really said it to my face (except for Teacher Noni that one time in front of the whole class and I was taken aback- so that’s what people thought of me) but I knew I was generally labelled as a pretty uptight person. I like to think I’ve changed significantly during my current course of life, namely after entering college. I learned to love and appreciate spontaneity and adventure, but that didn’t mean I stopped being afraid of it, just that I refused to allow myself to linger on the thought too much. It still scares me if I allow myself to think about it, and subsequently the thought expands into worry bubbles and if it proliferates long enough, emerges as anxiety.

But I crave it. Once getting past the hurdle of fear, it was the best feeling in the world. Booking a flight to UK was pretty much an on-a-whim thing I did; I wouldn’t have done it if I continued mulling it over for days. (It’s too dangerous. I don’t actually have to do this. I’m going to go to UK when I go to university anyway. I haven’t been on a flight in three years. The weather’s too cold, I might get really sick. I’m still coming to terms with being nervous a lot of the time, especially on flights. My parents aren’t going with me, what’s the point? It’s just UK! I should be spending more time at home since I’m going to college soon!) On the day of the flight itself, I was suddenly struck by the horror of what I’d done – why in the fresh hell did I decide to fly to a foreign country 13 hours away without my parents for a month? And everything within me started screaming, “TURN BACK! TURN BACK!” but it was too late. I was already on the plane. I had no choice but to accept this whimsical decision of mine. And honestly, it was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life.

After having lived 19 years of life, I should be able to banish the “blueprint” from my mind. And I am trying, bit by bit. The question is, do I want to? Should I? On one hand, it could be a good thing in the sense that I have a direction and purpose in life; on the other…is it really the direction and purpose in life that I really want?

lone drive

I drove alone for the first time in months.

I visited Beneh today on the first day of Raya and was treated with generous servings of lontong (which she took the liberty to cut for me, thank you) and rendang, which satiated my rendang craving since this morning. It felt so pleasant and nice to catch up with her, talking about nothing specific but everything in general. And then it was 7 and I had to leave to buy dinner for my mum who was working today.

I was quite antsy during the drive to Beneh’s house (when am I ever not anxious, sigh) because, as I said, it was my first time driving alone in months. But on the drive back, fuelled by triumph of reaching Beneh’s house by myself in one piece, suddenly, I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to just keep on driving forever with STRFKR playing on the car stereo, all traces of anxiety eliminated.

And that’s what I did. I looped around the neighbourhood, basically, passing by my friends’ houses and dropping mental greetings by their doorsteps, marvelling in the possibility that they might just pick up on that. The sun was just setting, I was singing at the top of my lungs to songs that don’t even have lyrics, just music; wonderful, seep-into-your-bones kind of music that made you forget that you were actually making rounds in your own neighbourhood instead of speeding down the deserted lanes of Iceland (or something).

It felt nice to be alone, whilst in control of a powerful automated vehicle. It felt nice to be alone, period, something I must say I haven’t been able to feel for quite some time now.

And then I drove back home and my dad and I went to get dinner for my mum.

Monday Night

We started the evening/night’s adventure with Sweet Child of Mine by Guns N’ Roses from Karu’s mixtape playing on the radio in Bellyn’s silver Viva.

Reservations were made beforehand at Upstairs Café, which was fortunate because when we reached the café which was literally an upstairs shoplot, it was pretty much full. We each placed our own food orders (all of us ordered pasta of different varieties) (I ordered putanesca despite not knowing what it was solely because there was a period of time in my life when I was obsessed with the Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events movie and one of the scenes in it was when the Boudelaires had to prepare putanesca as dinner for Count Olaf using a spittoon) and also dessert orders.

And then, we waited until around half past seven for iftar. In the meantime, we played Truth or Dare using an app of Bellyn’s phone as the “spinning bottle”. The last time I played Truth or Dare was when I was 12, but that was the least of the reasons why I was apprehensive to play this game. But in the end, I didn’t go a single round and it actually turned out to be quite an entertaining activity while we waited for our food to arrive.

Not surprisingly, all thoughts of Truth or Dare went out the metaphoric window when our pastas arrived, and in between gulping down our food wolfishly, exclaims of how splendid the food was were thrown around the table, which were met by equally enthusiastic nods and agreements by members of the dinner table. And then the desserts arrived – crème brulee, lemon meringue – and it was so, so good so Harris and I went to order our own desserts as well – lemon meringue too, and a chocolate French dessert. We also secretly ordered a slice of red velvet cake for Zitian, as this food trip was initiated partially to celebrate Zitian’s belated birthday.

Dessert eating was yet another round of happy and satisfied customers showing their affection for the food and now, the place and its ambience in general. And then Zitian’s cake came and we all collectively sang a birthday song for her.

It’s getting harder and harder to describe my experiences with these people using mere words. They really don’t do my emotions justice at all.

We continued talking after that and left when it started to get quite crowded. From there, Bellyn drove us to SS15 where we shopped for bread and pastries at RT Bakery. We didn’t say it out loud, but it felt as if none of us wanted the night to end just yet. Being mobile felt powerful. But it was a Monday night, which meant that there were still classes to attend tomorrow, homework to be done, responsibilities to be fulfilled. There will come a day when none of this will matter anymore, none of this will be top priority on our lists, but alas, Monday night was not that day.

At around 9PM, it was time to head back. Taliza was dropped off at college, and Karu and Harris were dropped off at Pyramid. And then Bellyn, Zitian and I headed back to SMR.

We ended the evening/night’s adventure once again with Sweet Child of Mine.

Stepping Into the World of Make-Up (Zalora Malaysia)

When I was very young (say, about 8 or 9 years old), I swore to myself that I would never wear make-up. Or heels. Or dresses or skirts. I guess I was indoctrinated to believe that all these: make-up, heels and dresses were rites of passage that transformed me into the young girl I was into a typical woman just like everyone else. I believed these products to be goods marketed to target women’s inculcated insecurities, and even then, I refused to conform to society’s expectations of what is and isn’t beautiful.

10 years later, I am 19 years old, and I love make up. I don’t use it religiously, but I love the way make-up products look on me, and that remains the only sole reason I use these products. Capitalism and marketing manipulation do exist, and these standards that are expected of women are there because they were set by men, men who should have absolutely no say in deciding how a woman should appear to be “socially acceptable” to members of society. People clamouring on both ends of the spectrum that “make-up is essential and necessary for every woman!” and “women shouldn’t wear make-up because they look better naturally!” are redundant and inefficacious because the only people who should be given the right to decide whether or not to use make-up are the women who are actually using the products themselves.

I don’t apply make-up to please the people around me; I do it because it I like it and it even helps to boost my confidence levels. Always do things for yourself, because other people who offer criticisms about you (especially concerning your appearance) don’t actually care how you look like; it just provides them with a sense of power and entitlement that makes them believe they are allowed to dictate what and how you should look like.

(I guess you can say it’s a metaphor; you apply the manipulative product right to your face, but you don’t give it the power to do its manipulating.)

The general rule of using lipstick is to choose a colour that suits your skin tone well. (This reminds me of the time Taliza came over and we did make-up together for Triple A; googling “how to choose your lipstick” sort of helped.) Coral reds or dark reds with pink undertones are usually suitable for fair skin types, while medium or olive skin tones go well with pink and cranberry shades, as well as brick reds. For dark skins, reds with burgundy or brown tones work well. Of course, one can always opt to stick to true red, the allegedly universally flattering colour to suit all skin tones. But honestly, if you ever get the chance to lay your hands upon unconventional lipstick colours (dark purple, blue, green etc), go for it! You will never know how good it looks on you until you actually try it.

Dark red, dark purple and blue lipsticks Photo credit: Bellyn Ooi

Eyeliners always come in handy when you want to look different – bold and accentuated. It also requires immense skill, to be quite honest, and my friends Effie and Mei are on a pedestalled level in the eyelining department, a level which I hope to achieve as well someday. Generally, black eyeliner works well on everyone, but it’s also fun to experiment with wacky colours such as blue and green. Liquid eyeliner is on a whole other level, and I aspire to flourish a liquid eyeliner wand with full confidence someday as well. One of the more popular looks that can be achieved with the appliance of eyeliners is the “smokey effect look”, coupled together with the addition of shimmering eyeshadow along the creases of the eyes.

For a dewy skin complexion, blushers work best for those with a medium skin tone. Produce a glowing effect with different shades of champagne for fair skins, a golden tone for olive skin types and a copper shade for those who have darker skin tones. Using blushers require little effort – but can make a world of difference. It also comes in handy for instantaneous freshening purposes – perfect for those like me who don’t realise it’s 2AM by the time the end credits of yet another episode starts rolling against a black screen. (Although, of course, wearing my fatigue outwardly and adamantly to show to the world remains on of my favourite long-term hobbies.)

Now, just by visiting Zalora.com.my, you can order make-up products that range from local to international brands, from lipsticks to eyeshadow palettes, and then wait for it to be delivered right to your doorstep!

H-Ipoh-thetically… (We went to Ipoh)

Firstly, I AM SO SORRY this post is so overdue.

Secondly, I AM SO SORRY for the terrible, terrible pun in the title. It’s not even pronounced hee-po-the-ti-cally (hai-po-the-ti-cally) BUT I spent the past 20 min trying to think of a creative title so please work with me.

A week after MCKLMUN (I wrote a page on that), it was time to start packing again; this time, for a trip to Ipoh.

Friday 4th of July, after class, Zi Tian’s dad picked us and our luggage up from SMR, and six of us, Zi Tian, Zi Tian’s sister Zi Yuan, Pei Ying, Yi Jing, Rumin and I sat through the two hours + journey from KL to Ipoh in the car. Things we did in the car: sleep, listen to music, talk, come up with the hashtag #alorsetarxipoh to use for photos on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The future is now.

It was already 7 in the evening when we finally reached Ipoh, or more accurately, Zi Tian’s house. We had a bit of a house tour in the Chin mansion before going for dinner. Dinner being bean sprouts and chicken with hor fun. I, uh, finished the last bits of the bean sprouts??? I was the last one still eating at the table??? Heads-up, I ate a lot during this trip. Hard not to, because Ipoh food is great.

The rest of the Friday night was just basically chilling out, watching a movie until 1AM, talking and stuff etc.

The next morning was an early rise to curry mee as breakfast, and it was nothing like the curry mee back in Alor Setar. It was strange, but it was also amazingly good and now I’m just getting hungry thinking about Ipoh curry mee.

After breakfast, we explored Old Town Ipoh. Sekeping Kong Heng and its surroundings, specifically. It was a really quaint and lovely area segregated from the urbanities of the city and it was nice to just walk around and take loads of photos and also film. We even had some kind of ice ball that kept leaking all over the place.

We then had creme caramel at a really crowded coffee shop, the same creme caramel that my classmates tapao-ed for me from Ipoh during last year’s road trip. (Also the very same one that set Bellyn off on her pudding craving the following week.) And then we had egg tarts and white coffee. And tau foo faa. I told you this was a food trip.

We went back to Zi Tian’s house to clean up for a while after that before setting out once again for lunch at Tualang, which was an hour’s drive away. With so much food already in me, you’d think I couldn’t take in anymore. I thought so too. We are both wrong. I finished my plate of rice…and more. I went from barely finishing half a packet of Indomie during lunch hours at The Rock to eating non-stop for six hours. My stomach was a bottomless pit for that weekend.

Another hour’s drive back to Zi Tian’s house later, we watched Black Swan (or semi-watched, more like; I still remain highly disturbed to this day), cleaned up and then headed out for dinner at a hawker centre near to Zi Tian’s house.

Post-dinner hours were the highlights of the trip: we went to Kinta River Front and that’s when the longest 30 minutes of our lives happened. It was a very scenic place and we saw people riding two-seater and three-seater bicycles so naturally we wanted to do the same. 10 minutes into our attempt to ride a three-seater bike, we were all already pretty sweaty and aching and still had no idea how to balance a three-seater bike??? We eventually got it though, despite all the swerving and almost-clashing-into-other-bikes and it was the most tiring workout I’ve had had all year.

It wasn’t surprising that all of us slept pretty well that night.

The next morning saw us waking up at 11AM and having lunch after that. After lunch we shopped a bit at Ipoh Parade where we got a Parkson gift card for Zi Tian’s family as a token of our thanks. The subsequent hours between that and leaving for the train station was spent eating green tea ice cream, complaining about the terrible service of the cafe and lying on the living room floor talking and laughing. Soon, it was 3PM and we left for the train station with heavy hearts. We met up with Qiu Jing there and I spent the next 2.5 hours watching Adventure Time on my laptop.

The two-day weekend felt like a month-long trip in a good way, and I enjoyed myself immensely, being able to immerse myself in the full experience of the exploration of Ipoh without the immediate worries left back in Sunway. Thank you Chin family for having us. Thank you housemates for being such great companions.

I also made some videos for this trip.

All photos belong to Zi Tian.

Moving In-niversary

1186135_10200545342048560_1315344565_n — Sem 1 days – you can even see Bellyn in the back

Yesterday, the 3rd of July, marks our one-year anniversary of moving into SMR and studying at Sunway College. It’s really quite unbelievable that it’s already been a year, when it feels as if I’d only been here for a shorter time period than that. I can still remember pretty vividly my first day of moving into SMR with six other housemates and crying my eyes out when my parents left and I was faced with the horrible reality of living alone, orientation days in college, first day of classes with my classmates whom I still didn’t know back then etc. On one hand, sem 1 does feel really, really far away, but also near enough that you can still recall details of these events as if it’d happened just last week. Does that make sense? It really doesn’t, but that’s honestly how I feel about this one-year anniversary thing.

The end of a year means that I only have six months left in this place and the thought of it is honestly really depressing, but as an exercise that I’ve been coercing myself into doing lately, which is to focus more on the positives rather than the negatives, right now I’m just trying to make the absolute best out of the remaining six months I have left with all the amazing people I’ve met here whom I am so honoured to call my friends.

There’s only so much of my emotions I can put into writing, and right now these words don’t do my feelings justice. These feelings are a combination of sorrow, melancholy, nostalgia, eagerness (to do everything I want to do before leaving) and above all, gratitude. I can’t seem to stress that enough.