Life’s Little Tidbits – Page 4

Strawberry Fields Aren’t Forever

It’s been about a week since I first drove to school by myself, and I know it might not be such a big deal to many, but for me, it’s a milestone that I’ve passed. “With great power comes great responsibility” but for me “with a car of your own comes ginormous responsibility” and it just feels very foreign to go to and back from school alone. No Mum or Dad waiting for me at the porch to pick me up, no catching a few winks in the car on the way home from school. Despite my initial enthusiasm to drive to school alone (or in my Dad’s words, “gila steering”-ness), the foreignness can be very unsettling sometimes. It is a banner, a sign being waved in my face telling me that I’m grown up now.

I’m grown up now and my strawberry fields aren’t forever.

In fact, the end of my teenage years is much more eminent now since I’m going to be graduating from high school tomorrow. I’m graduating from high school tomorrow. I’m graduating from high school tomorrow. Imagine that! I’m graduating from high school tomorrow! After five years of whining about secondary education every day, I only have two weeks left to whine about it.

And so many things have happened over the span of five years, some which have certainly permanently changed the course of my life that it feels so strange and wrong to leave all of a sudden. I stepped into Asma as a Form One student knowing that this day would come, but no one ever told me that I’ll never be prepared for it.

Currently, the thought of graduation makes me feel excited yet a little nauseous. My quitter self has considered chickening out several times but who are we kidding? YOGO (You only graduate once).

Of late, I’ve also been more prone to vulnerability. I’m not quite sure if it’s part of growing up or the increasing stress of SPM, but it’s a huge hindrance on my part. Aunty Amelia said I was the kind of person to be really high one moment, and then really low the next, so I’m thinking this is one of those mood swings which, hopefully, will be able to wear off as easily as the other past swings have. I was also hoping that talking about it would alleviate the anxiety. I don’t know. I really do need a control switch to make me stop thinking too much.

Um, bye

Calling All Form Five Asmarians | Collecting Memories

Part of the Collecting Memories project that was initiated to document our journey in Asma in the remaining months before we leave our secondary school, a bunch of us have created a blog-journal opened to all Form Five Asmarians to put in their own contributions too, be it in any language.

(Click the photo to visit the website.)

Any Form Five student who is from Asma who would like to be a part of this project, kindly sign up here and go wild!

Freshly Driven

I want to begin this post with a quote from a really good friend of mine, Ann-Marie: “Ladies and gentlemen, introducing a new danger on the road.”

Which is ironic because I know she doesn’t really mean it (…right Ann-Marie? Right? RIGHT?) but it is actually quite true.

For some of those who didn’t know yet, I recently passed my driving retest last Sunday! Woo! I was so relieved and just so very happy to see the ticks on the “Lulus” boxes on my form after I finished my parking test that I literally couldn’t stop grinning all the way home. I swear, if I’d failed again I wouldn’t know what to do. I was so anxious that I didn’t even know if the shaking in my legs was because of my anxiety or the car.

I had my first real driving journey yesterday, when I drove to Kuala Kedah for about half an hour. Boy, was it tiring. No one told me driving was so tiring. Besides being tiring, it was also hella scary (I just used the word “hella” oh boy) and intimidating. I felt like a freshman watching everyone zoom past me, overtaking me, doing all sorts of crazy manoeuvres that all you professional, 30-years experienced drivers do while I crouch behind my steering wheel praying that I don’t hit anything or anyone. It was exhausting. I’m not quite sure if it’s a typical thing to feel for a driving newbie because most friends of mine around my age who have already acquired their licenses are definitely much more confident than me on the road and I’m only confident when there are no cars around so, good luck on that, Michelle.

Perhaps what I require is practice. Lots of it. Harry Mobile, you and I have got a lot of work to do.

Of Hourly Rain, Group Visits to Room 2012 and the Absence of Leg Room in Front of the Toilet Bowl

I initially planned to write this as a journal page but then thought that’d be monotonous and repetitive since my four-day agenda at cram school was mostly the same everyday so here goes.

The official name for this cram school is Program SEDAR SPM and they told us “SEDAR” stands for “Stayback Examination something something Retest” but we all know what it really means (for those who don’t know, “sedar” means “realization” in Malay).

The initial image I’d formed regarding the camp was beyond horrible. I heard from the Form 6 seniors who had just returned from Dusun Minda Resort at Kuala Nerang where the camp would be held that they had stayed at the dorms and, I’m paraphrasing, “the bath water was black in colour, there were no bathroom stalls, just a pool for you to bathe in, the air conditioning system was dysfunctional and the beds were dirty.”

I spent the previous day clinging to my bed and spending about half an hour in the shower, savouring my clean bathroom environment and bath water before I headed off to four days of caveman life.

But when we reached the Resort, everything was much, much better than expected. It was announced at the lobby that my roommates would be Yu Han, Ee Ching and Hooi Shian and as they handed out room keys, we got Room 3016, which, we later found out was one of the chalets in the last row of the area. But we didn’t know that yet. In fact, we were completely shocked when we found out four of us had an entire chalet to ourselves with our own toilet. A toilet with a fully functioning showerhead, sink, toilet bowl and a door. My spirits lifted up so high I was confident I was able to survive this camp after all. The rest of the room consisted of only two bunk beds and two closets but it was okay. It was very okay. This was something I could deal with. The thing I was most afraid of (dirty toilets) turned out to be bearable that I got so pumped up for the upcoming study session.

Our study sessions were held alternatively at Dewan Tetra and Dewan Arowana, a long hall filled with adjoined tables and chairs, almost like a tuition centre. On the first day, we had three slots for Add Math, and for the next three days, we had four slots for Chemistry, four slots for Physics and two slots for Biology respectively. Each slot lasted about two hours and all slots started from 8-10.30 AM, 11 AM-1 PM, 2.30-4.30 PM and 8-9.30 PM. In between those slots we carried out the most important activity of our lives: eat. It was terrible. Besides being nicknamed Hutan Hujan Setiap Dua Jam, the camp should also be called Makan Setiap Jam. Everyone was always hungry there. We’d walk from the chalets to the lecture hall, get hungry and eat some snacks, walk from the lecture hall to the canteen, get hungry and eat breakfast/ morning snack/ lunch/ tea/ dinner/ supper, and then walk from the canteen to the chalets, get hungry again and eat more in our rooms. The amount of food we consumed was directly proportional to the total distance of path travelled and since walking anywhere seemed like ages, you can imagine the amount of food we’ve consumed.

As mentioned above, Dusun Minda Resort is located in the area of Hutan Hujan Setiap Dua Jam and it literally rained every two hours. It rained while we were walking, it rained in the middle of a session, it rained in the middle of a meal, it rained while we hung out in our chalets, it rained when we left out wet shoes out to dry, it rained while we carried out activities in the jungle, it rained while we slept and it even rained when we went home. I hadn’t expected such long distances between our destinations before I left for the camp so naturally, I didn’t bring any umbrellas or raincoats so I had to make do with my sweater and beanie. But mostly we tried to stay indoors if it rained. I mean, where else could we go to, the cinema? Ha! I’m sorry, that was a very lame joke.

During the break from 4.30 to 8 PM, we had activities in the jungle under “Beriadah” in the timetable. On the first day, we crossed obstacles on National Service land. There were monkey bars, wall climbing, narrow bridge crossing et cetera and it was great fun and also great fatigue and fear. There was an obstacle at which we had to walk on top of these narrow walls with gaps in between and at first I thought it’d be easy peasy lemon squeezy and then I encountered my first gap and felt like vomiting my organs. I couldn’t move a muscle and only got through with the help of the instructor’s tree branch which he held up so we had something to hold on to as we crossed the gaps. The riadah activities on the second day was more interesting, and it was held in the jungle. There were three stations and the first station was called Hole In One. There was a huge tyre tied to two tree trunks and the objective of the game was to get all members in our team to cross to the other side through the hole in the tyre- without touching it. So everyone formed a conveyor belt of arms and we were transported to the other side in waves. When it was my turn, I couldn’t even open my eyes mostly out of confusion over what was happening but then everyone started chanting “Harry! Harry!” and that set me off. I was laughing all the way through the tyre and halfway there, Aifa even had the chance to say, “You’re gonna blog about this” and she was right! Four for you, Aifa! You go, Aifa! The second station was one where we had to take two tyres out of this really huge and long pole without touching the pole and then putting them back. I admit that I didn’t contribute much since I was neither strong enough nor tall enough nor small enough nor light enough to be the one to support people on my back and shoulders or the one to be supported on other people’s backs and shoulders, but I helped…a little…I guess…Uhhh…

The last station was one which we didn’t get to complete in time since it started raining and it was also close to 7 PM which, coupled with being in the middle of a jungle, meant approaching darkness. At the last station, we had to swing across a rope and then fit all twenty plus of us onto a tyre (these people sure make use of their tyres) but I didn’t get to swing before we all ran back to the lobby in the rain.

You’d think all these activities would guarantee myself a deep slumber at night but it was far from that. In fact, on the first night, we (Yu Han, Ee Ching, Hooi Shian and I) were practically homeless. Our room was leaking and there was a huge puddle in the middle of the room which we only discovered when it was around midnight so we spent about an hour walking to the lobby to request for a room change only to be offered Room 3019 which was even further than the room we were in and was also apparently “crossed out”, walking to the dorm to get Chin Teng’s room key from her since she was sleeping in the dorm and Room 2004, which was her room, would be unused, walking to Room 3016 to get our things and then finally to Room 2004 to sleep. Three of us (Hooi Shian preferred to sleep in the dorm) pulled mattresses down from the beds to sleep on the floor but instead of falling asleep immediately, the foreign surroundings, paranoid thoughts and remnants of a previous panic attack pulled me from the desire to sleep. I didn’t dare move and didn’t dare open my eyes but finally, at 3AM, I managed to drift off to sleep. I’m sure the others weren’t too comfortable either since all of us agreed to keep all the lights on.

In fact, all three nights I’d spent at Dusun were sleepless nights. Never once did I drift off to sleep without a single strand of fear or worry to keep me awake. It was tiring since we had to wake up super early the next day and there was no time at all for me to squeeze in a nap in between our jam packed schedule. Hence, it wasn’t at all surprising that I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow at 10 PM on the day I came home.

However, the highlights of this camp, I have to admit, were the frequent visits to Nado’s room, Room 2012. It was always packed in there (aided by the fact that Aina had moved into that room and there were five people bunking in that room) and we even joked about it being a rumah kebajikan and the Room of the Year because it literally was the room of the year. During afternoon and evening breaks, and also after the last session ended at 9.30 PM, Beneh and I would “lepak” there along with Leea, Lela, Eel, Ayuni, Ama B, Diana along with its inhabitants, Razan, Nado, Aina, Eah and Hamimah. Sometimes, even Laiyy, Wahed, Mas and Nadsyam would join us. It was like a common room, the common room, and there was never a serious moment in the common room. It was wonderful and…in that moment, I swear we were infinite.

Allow me to digress here to exclaim that thE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER MOVIE IS ALREADY OUT

One of the downsides of this camp was the inability to get away to be by myself. I mean, of course I could seclude myself if I wanted to, but I was afraid to at a place like that, so I had to go along with it and just deal with it even when I was too tired for human company. These moments always left me feeling nauseous and homesick, but I forced myself to abandon these thoughts and mix with the crowd despite the fact that I was out of social battery and was in desperate need of a recharge. Thankfully, sometimes, just being with Beneh and Lela was okay enough to allow me to recharge. Hence, the first thing I did when I came home was spend a whole hour in my room just doing nothing. The camp exhausted me both physically and mentally.

As a whole, despite the fact that the place left a lot to be desired, the studying sessions long and tedious and there was no Internet for 75 hours, to say that I didn’t have fun would be false. I had fun. I had a different kind of fun, and in spite of the foreignness of it all, I’m glad to have experienced this different kind of fun once in a while. Walking in the rain with trees all around you sounds like an invitation to a fever but when you come to think of it, how many times do and will you get to do this in your life? How many times do you get to hang out with all of your friends in the middle of a jungle? It’s natural for us to think of the flaws around us, but I’m thankful for the four days I’ve spent at Dusun Minda Resort. The main objective was probably to get us to study without distractions, but I like to think I’ve learned more than that. I’ve also learned to be independent, I reckon. I reckoned I handle myself quite well there (I didn’t leave any underwear lying around on the floor, at least). It also made me appreciate the people around me much, much more and realise how I have met and made friends with some of the greatest people in my life.

I am pleased to be back in civilisation, but these are memories I will treasure for a long, long time.

Crisis Week Day 7: Making A Mark

Crisis Week Day 7 aka the last day of Crisis Week! YAY!!!

Don’t get me wrong, it has been quite a fun week, and it made me more aware of my surroundings in my search for interesting topics to write. Aside from that, it also helped to kill my procrastination (ONLY towards blogging, however) because it felt like I held a responsibility towards you guys. I have failed to carry out so many previous projects of mine that I shudder to think what people would think of me if I failed this one again.

So, today, in conjunction of the last day of Crisis Week, I’m going to do something I’ve never done before, which is to post my SPM trials marks on my blog. And, drum roll…

(I have no idea why it looks so blurred when I post it but click on the picture for a bigger view)

One of the reasons why I never did that was because I was afraid of being called arrogant or a show-off for that. Let me tell you why this isn’t so. First off, I understand these aren’t the best marks in town. They aren’t even straight A+s. There are people out there who did better than me. Heck, I don’t even know if I’m going to be first in form this time again. But what I do know is that I myself think they aren’t quite bad. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever truly been happy with my own results. I’m not entirely satisfied because of the 2As, but I’m happy with it, and I’m happy that my efforts have not gone to waste. Please know that I didn’t post this to make anyone feel inferior, or to make myself look superior to anyone else. I’m not, I am aware of that. I’m just…very happy, and I want to show it to the world. One day, I want to be able to look back through my high school posts and remember this moment, this moment in which I worked hard and got what I wanted, and I hope this will serve as a source of motivation for future Michelle if she ever feels the walls closing in. In which case, hello future Michelle if you’re reading this, I hope you recognise your own efforts and don’t you dare feel bitter if you can’t achieve things on as great a scale as your previous achievements. Remember how you craved for imperfection? This is it. This is human.

So that is all for today, I hope you enjoyed this week of my WordPress Mid-Life Crisis Week as much as I did. Just a little update: from next Monday till Thursday, I will be heading for Dusun Minda Resort at Kuala Nerang in the middle of the woods for a 4-day-3-night study camp, or as Aifa put it, cram school with no (gasp!) Internet. Weirdly, I think I’m quite looking forward to it. Let’s see what happens when you put 180 rowdy teenage girls in the middle of a forest for four days.

BYE!

Crisis Week Day 6: The Passing Down of Music from Generation to Generation

Yesterday, One Direction’s new single Live While We’re Young which was scheduled to be released on the 24th of September was leaked and today it’s playing on radio stations worldwide. Fly FM itself has already played it about six times in three hours, which is great and this makes everything about today great. Perhaps I should also mention that I (or technically, my Twitter account) was mentioned on Fly FM this morning when they were reading their mentions from people who were requesting them to play LWWY again. My five seconds of national fame right there. This is something to be added to my resumé.

There’s this thing I’ve been pondering about for quite some time now, and always wanted to blog about it, and somehow the release of LWWY reminded me of it after I’d filed it away a few months ago. Wouldn’t it be strange when you grow up one day, and tell your kids that you used to listen to music of the 00’s (how do you even pronounce that)? I mean, would they still be considered oldies? Music from the 70s’ to 90s’ are considered oldies in the 21st century which is plausible because they do sound old, but does Nicki Minaj sound old? Will she ever sound old? And how will the music be in many years to come? Will there even be music? Perhaps they’ll just be weird and strange noises- oh wait, that’s dubstep. I don’t know, dubstep is what I think would be the music of the future. We’ve all stereotyped the future to be this pristine and entirely sharp universe and that’s what I think dubstep is all about. Being sharp, I mean, not pristine.

Weirdly, now that I’ve wrote all of that, I can see a future in which we tell our children that the likes of One Direction, Kanye West and Lady Gaga were our “oldies”. Perhaps they will think they sound old too. I mean, how do you define “oldies”? I think it suits better as a term that means “music we listened to while we were young many years ago” instead of actually possessing the essence of “oldness”. In a way, it’s pretty sad that our future oldies are mostly songs about partying, having sex, drinking and doing drugs…remember when The Beatles sang about wanting to hold your hand? Subtlety and chivalry has definitely deteriorated with the times, but everyone enjoys their own music, there’s no fault in that. We can’t stop the waves of modernism from washing up our shores.

“Mum, when did you first fall in love with Dad?” “Well, he had me at the first time he played All I Ask Of You by Skrillex on his iPad from across the bar counter.”

It’s certainly no John Cusack with a boombox playing Say Anything outside your room but perhaps this is 2012.

Crisis Week Day 5: Two Months

This Crisis Week thing is getting quite tiring, especially when school ends at 5 for me. I’m also running out of ideas to write a variety of posts, but I’m already halfway through it anyway, so here’s to two more posts for this week, excluding this one.

Two months is the time I have left at my high school. Everything we did in school, it felt like it was our last time doing it. Two months left of eating at the canteen and behind the teachers’ room, of shoving each other to buy food at the counters, of using the science labs, of being generally rowdy in class when no teacher is present, of laughing at Cikgu Harum’s awkward jokes, of holding weekly chatting sessions with Laiyy and Beneh at the air-conditioned Accounts room under the tables…I could go on. I was shocked when I was told that the trial exam that just passed was our second last exam in high school. Second last. Which means that there’s one last exam to go and then we’ll be done here. Forever. It sounds like that Nanny McPhee movie in which Nanny McPhee says, “I’m only here when you need me, now that you don’t need me anymore, I’m going to leave.” Not in those exact words but something along those lines.

We are completing our secondary education. We are at the end of this stage and it’s time for us to level up.

It’s actually true when I say my life started when I was in high school. I don’t mean that it started for me the moment I entered high school, but somewhere along the way, it did. I started “gaining consciousness”, as I like to put it, and could see everything in a clearer view. I started to form opinions of my own, started to write for the benefit of myself and other people, started to discover my identity (as corny as that sounds) because I started to get an idea of what kind of person I wanted to be, started being analytic of my surroundings and people around me, and started to think and peruse beyond my safety borderlines. It happened during the middle of last year, and being in high school and mixing with the people I used to mix and still do now influenced me greatly in that department. If I’d been somewhere else, God only knows how I would’ve turned out, and generally speaking as a whole, I’m quite contented with where I am today. I mean, of course I still plunge into dark moods and meet dead ends every now and then, but judging by my current situation, I can imagine worse turnouts if things had been different for me, e.g. entering a different school, mixing with the wrong crowd et cetera, and I’m very thankful for being placed in this school.

At this time of the year, the question I get the most is, “What are you going to study after SPM?” It’s a question I’m very reluctant to answer because frankly, I don’t really know and also because it reminds me of how close I am to stepping into the real world. Initially, the answer I gave everyone was “dentistry, and then specialising in orthodontics” but now I don’t really know. What I do know is that I have this hazy passion for science which can be cultivated with the right factors so I’m also considering courses that involve scientific research and development as a possible path I could take. I don’t know, honestly. In the end it all boils down to how well I performed and am going to perform in trials and SPM. I suppose I am on the right track at the moment (I’m not going to say anything just yet lest I jinx myself) and I’m hoping for a smooth sail until the end of this year.

Remember Collecting Memories? Well, I have discussed it with Aifa, Anum and Beneh and right now, I regret to say I’ve lost the momentum but hopefully in a few weeks’ time, when the pressure of leaving school looms over me, I’ll be able to revive it. It’s not a dead idea, it’s just an idea undergoing hibernation until its tinder is sparked.

Something really nice happened today: Teacher Amanah praised my English essay which I wrote for trials which had something to do with time-turning machines and Sector 7 (yes, I stole that off the Transformers’ movie franchise, I’m sorry, it was a critical moment in the exam hall!) which I thought would sound silly but it turned out that she loved it and said that if I ever wrote any other stories besides exam essays, she would like to read them because, and I quote, “reading your essay was like reading a novel.” Ahhhfhfuiydgireinsdjkaflsasa I didn’t know how to react oh my god!!!! But I’m probably going to print a few stories off michwrites.wordpress.com for her and I know this might seem like I’m showing off but I really am not, I’m just really happy my English teacher likes my writings and it’s one thing for your friends and family members to tell you that they like your writings but it’s another thing entirely for your English teacher to do so. I know my stories still have room for improvement and I’m not saying they’re entirely flawless, but there’s an indescribable joy of knowing that other people like something that you have created, something you have put in effort to make, and it’s one of the greatest feelings in the world.

And that is all for day five. I hope you liked the post I wrote for day four, and would anyone care to share their opinions with me on that piece? Because it was my first time writing something like that and I want to know what people think of it.

Cheers!

Crisis Week Day 4: A Different Perspective

Blogging prompt

Today on Careful Confessions, we have a special guest present to share a few details about his life with us, let us give a warm welcome to Heart Teoh, our resident mixed-poodle who has recently agreed to do an interview with me after months of being begged to do so (spoiler: I was forced to say that). And now, without further ado, let us invite our special guest for the day to give a brief introduction about himself.

Are you done? Good. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about me. I’m sure all of you are terribly excited to know more about me. I mean, who wouldn’t? That’s why we’re doing this in the first place, aren’t we? Due to popular demand? I apologise for not doing this earlier, but I only offer exclusive interviews and this is a major repayment to Michelle for all those belly-rubbing, since she’d been begging for an interview for her blog for months, and also because I wouldn’t want to let my fans down. I know how much they’ve been wanting to hear from me. Well now, it is I, Heart Teoh, giving you the best tidbits of my life that would make greasy hairs curl, floorboards roll and china break.

Okay, I think that’s enough for an introduction, Heart.

This better be on Vogue or Time.

Yes, of course. And now, moving on to some questions your fans have for you. Number one, we are all dying to know, who is the real Heart Teoh?

Who is the real Heart Teoh? Is this a trick question? Who is the real Heart Te-

Just answer it, Heart. It’s a rhetorical question that means “who are you?”

Rhetorical or not, I don’t believe anyone would actually ask that question, and based on that, that wouldn’t be a question a fan would ask. You have pretty horrible interviewing skills for a journalist-to-be, Michelle.

Okay, okay. Say I’m a Martian from Mars who has never initiated a contact with an Earthling, until now. Tell me who you are.

Well, fine. (Rolls eyes) First thing we can all agree on is that I’m pretty damn good-looking. Would anyone like to oppose that motion? No? I didn’t think so. My owners always say I’m the unfriendliest living creature in the neighbourhood. Well, I beg to differ! Read that in an indignant voice alright, because I am indignant! I am offended to the highest degree of all high degrees! I think I’m pretty friendly. In fact, I think I get well with all the other dogs in the neighbourhood. Except that one dog of the same species with Golden from next door, and that Doberman two houses away, and especially that white pariah from the end of the opposite row, and also the poodle from the adjacent street, to be honest… Anyway, we all know they’re just jealous I’m a lady magnet. No one can ever resist me. Ever. Even if you hate me. Wait, scratch that. No one hates me. How can you hate me? The way that I flip my hair gets everyone overwhelmed.

I also hate everyone. I am like, the canine version of Scott Disick. I probably hate you. Unless you feed me. That’s how my masters got into my good shoes. I mean, you don’t just come barging into my territory and expect me to like you, right? The Terminator didn’t like it when people tried to mess with his subjects! Same principle here. I’m the Terminator. I’m Scott Disick and the Terminator. Now give me a bone.

No. Not until you finish these questions.

Is this how you treat the Terminator? I know I’m cute, but that is no way to treat a deadly robot machine with an M-14 for an arm!

Six more questions, that’s all.

Six more questions, six times the number of bones.

Yeah, fine. Second question is by H. Stiles of London: describe a typical day of yours?

My day starts whenever Michelle and Daddy exit the house so that Daddy can drive Michelle to school. And then I just spend the rest of the day basking in the warm sunlight and practise potential model poses for magazine covers, like the one for this interview. And then I ponder over life’s greatest joys and miseries and reflect on my journey through time, and how I was brought to this household and then all of that is thrown out of the window when Daddy feeds me breakfast. Then after I finish my portion, I proceed to growl at Golden when Daddy feeds him. How unfair. All meals should go to me. I should invent a conveyor belt that redirects all his food in his bowl to mine. Yeah, in fact…that’s a pretty good idea! I should work on that! I am a genius!

Besides making astounding discoveries about your otherworldly wisdom, what else do you do?

Well, in the evening, Daddy and occasionally Michelle will take me and Golden out for a walk to do our businesses, and most of the time I dawdle and wander around the place before deciding to poop, just to spite them. Hey, one does not simply poop unromantically anywhere, okay? Who knows, years from now people might be doing archaeological studies on my poop to confirm the existence of my species! That’s why I think long and hard before I poop; it’s one of my life’s mottos.

It also describes the texture of my poop pretty accurately.

K. East from California would like to know: who is your favourite family member…

DADDY!!!

…and why?

Because he feeds me the most and picks my ticks and fleas daily, equivalent to a high class spa treatment which is highly deserving of the canine version of Scott Disick. I respond to his affection by constantly slobbering his hands and legs and jumping on him to lick his face when he’s asleep. He loves it.

Don’t get me wrong, I also appreciate Mummy’s contribution which includes feeding me the best kind of food (i.e. bones) and giving me tight, metal-grip hugs which I can never escape from; and also Michelle, who always rubs me on the belly everytime I lie on my back, which is also everytime she comes near me, and also for giving in easily in a game of ball. I have a good family. They would serve me well as minions.

Okay…right. Next is a popular question among your fans. In fact, 90% of the tweets sent in asked this exact same question: do you have any love interests?

I hereby would like to thank the doggy powers above for I am blessed with the company of two fair ladies from next door, although admittedly, they are within a closer vicinity to Golden. How very unfair! I demand justice! I demand a switching of places! We all know who’s the fittest bachelor in the house! Can’t you see that they’re constantly pining for my love! Those ladies are constantly crying out my valiant name! I just know it!

Um…okay. And what would you do if you were human for a day?

I would build the biggest and grandest building in town for all dogs to live in, and then serve my dog masters loyally and clean their poop and prepare bacon gourmet for them everyda- wait a minute. I’m the human. No. What I meant was I’M the dog master and all humans shall serve me. But then you’re asking me what I’d do if I were a human. Hmm. Nope. This question is flawed. What a terrible question. Next.

So you seek world dominance?

Bringing out the big words, are we? Sounds like someone swallowed a dictionary. Well, to put it simply, yes.

But how will you communicate with your ministers if you hate everyone?

Stop asking me stupid questions, Michelle. Of course they’ll listen to me. I’m the Terminator. Everyone listens to the Terminator. And I said “Next!”

Calm down, mate. If you aren’t living with the Teohs, what would you be doing instead?

I’d probably be a traveller. I’d be climbing the Alps, visiting Angkor Wat, sailing the Pacific Ocean, braving the Amazon forest, that kind of Wild Thornberrys thing. And then I’d publish my own travel journal and earn lots of cash and buy a yacht full of bacon supplies for me and my lover and live happily ever after.

Okay, last question. Who is on your speed dial?

My mum. Although, I don’t quite remember who she is. In fact, I don’t even know is she’s still alive. I just saved her as an empty contact on my phone…what?

And that wraps up our interview for the day! Thank you to everyone who has sent in their lovely questions via Twitter, Facebook and e-mail, and thank you for tuning in! Heart, we look forward to having you on my blog again.

Well, not really.

Disclaimer: Contrary to what people might believe from the blogpost above, no I can’t communicate with my dog nor did this interview actually take place in real life. Heart’s personality in this interview was purely made up and I just thought it might be interesting to play him up as a douchey character because that’s what I get off of him most of the times. Please do know that I love him very much and everyone in this house loves him very much and yes he is actually quite mean to Golden in real life and yes, he is “attracted” to the female dogs next door and no, he doesn’t hate everyone. He just barks at everyone. Which constantly gives people the impression that he does, which coincidentally plays well with my made-up character for him. If you get to know him more, you will soon come to realise that there is something else deeper within him.

Which is neverending hunger.

Crisis Week Day 3: I Am A Melancholic

More than 24 hours after my previous post, I realise I might have overreacted. A lot. To be fair, I wrote my previous post on my Notes app on my phone at the driving centre itself and then published it when I found wifi at Tesco, so all my emotions and wounds were still fresh and raw, and I was, to put it bluntly, a bitter old lady. Mostly, I was just very disappointed in myself for letting my parents down after all that they’ve done for me that I was even afraid of telling them about it.

I came home after that, still licking my own wounds, and tried to watch Avengers to cheer myself up. And then I fell sick, and all optimistic thoughts went out the window. It also didn’t help that I was reminded that The Wanted’s concert was on that day itself and that I could’ve gone to that concert because it wasn’t like I had acquired a driver’s license to compensate for it. And then the rest of the day was just me being bitter and feeling absolutely horrible and just thinking. That was it, really. I can’t remember anything about yesterday except that I watched the Avengers and then felt everything that was to be felt the rest of the day, besides also lashing out bitterly at most people that talked to me on Twitter and reliving scenes during my driving test. Those weren’t easy to let go of. Pain demands to be felt. I was a magnet attracting all sorts of negative thoughts and the remaining energy I had left was dissipated in the form of sneezing and blowing snot out of my nose.

But I’ve accepted my failure now, come to realise that it’s not as such a big deal as I’d made it out to be, and that in the grand scheme of things, this was but a small hurdle in the way.

And that was how my Blue Monday went, and in the history of annual Blue Mondays I’ve ever had, that was the worst. And I attribute my Blue Monday (and all my Blue Mondays) to my Melancholic temperament.

From “The Four Temperaments,” by Rev. Conrad Hock:

The Melancholic:

Is self-conscious, easily embarrassed, timid, bashful.
Avoids talking before a group; when obliged to he finds it difficult.
Prefers to work and play alone. Good in details; careful.
Is deliberative; slow in making decisions; perhaps overcautious even in minor matters.
Is lacking in self-confidence and initiative; compliant and yielding.
Tends to be detached from environment; reserved and distant except to intimate friends.
Tends to be depressed; frequently moody or gloomy; very sensitive; easily hurt.
Does not form acquaintances readily; prefers narrow range of friends; tends to exclude others.
Worries over possible misfortune; crosses bridges before coming to them.
Is secretive; seclusive; shut in; not inclined to speak unless spoken to.
Is slow in movement; deliberative or perhaps indecisive; moods frequent and constant.
Often represents himself at a disadvantage; modest and unassuming.

[source]

According to buzzle.com, Melancholics are “severely emotional and sensitive”, so there you go. Everything that other people felt, I felt it ten times even more in intensity. Other people felt sad over failing a test, I was pulverized to bits. I am an internal amplifier, and an enclosed one at that, because whatever ordeal that I go through, I am forced to relive it over and over again involuntarily. It was like being yelled at by my brain that, “You brought this upon yourself so now you have to think about it for the next 300 hours.” And so a single bad thought was able to ruin my day by making me think and ponder about it, about what I could’ve done instead, what would’ve happened if I’d chosen an alternate path, made a different decision, how other people thought of me in that moment, how I looked like to other people, the list is endless.

I also feel a lot when it comes to other things, everything in fact, and not only in the face of predicaments. For me, my life is a giant tale which I am constantly striving to make perfect, and everyone in my life plays their respective roles in my tale as important characters. And it is the darnedest thing when I constantly spend my time thinking about these characters in my story and my own role in it, and then I get sad when I realise that this whole big “my life is a story that I’m telling” process and concept isn’t exactly applicable to everyone because then I wouldn’t be a character in someone else’s story and that makes me feel melancholy. I know this sounds selfish and narcissistic, but is it really that bad to want to be a character in someone else’s story, even if it’s just a minor character? I feel very strongly about the characters in my story, without them, my story wouldn’t be complete, and I just want others to feel the significance of my presence as I do towards theirs. There, that sounds better in simpler words.

Besides being an amplifier, I also work great as a thermometer, both physically and mentally but I’ll leave the former out. My views and the ways I act varies in accordance to my surroundings and the people I mix with, and they vary very quickly, the way sensitive thermometers work. This was worst when I was younger and thankfully it’s getting better now, although this also enclosed thermometer prevents me from forgetting about others’ opinions when I try to form my own. For instance, I once visited Best Coast’s page on Last.fm and saw in the comment box that many commented that their new album was terrible so I downloaded their new album and gave it a listen and tried to form my own opinion, to decide whether it was good or bad, and found that I couldn’t. My opinion since then has been null and void.

So this is it. My post for the third day of my WordPress Mid-Life Crisis Week. I don’t even know what post this is, or if it’s even relevant to its title but alas I don’t think I can start a different post. This post sounded a lot grander in my head last night but nope. So I’m just going to say goodbye and hope no one finds this as bad as I do. Okay bye bye BYE

Crisis Week Day 2: Failure

I failed my driving test. Initially I didn’t want to talk about it, had a blogpost ready in mind that consisted of only two sentences: I failed my driving test. I really don’t want to talk about it. And truth be told, if it wasn’t crisis week, I wouldn’t even want to mention it, but what has happened has happened, I’m not going to question it.

“What has happened has happened.” How I hate that sentence. People say it often to cheer someone up, let bygones be bygones, nasi sudah jadi bubur, there’s nothing else you can do. Fine I agree. But it’s not like the knowledge of truly knowing things have passed which I can’t change can prevent me from thinking about it. Because that’s what I’ve been doing since the tester gave me a big fat cross on my result sheet. It consumed me whole the first ten minutes during which I wanted to drown myself in the toilet or something but now I’m okay. Okay in comparison to being wholly consumed. Okay as in being half-consumed. Which sucks but at least I don’t feel like drowning myself anymore so woohoo gold medal for me.

My luck has really gone to the dogs today. Because that’s really what it’s all about. Luck. Not lack of skill or practice. I’d practiced for an hour beforehand and everything was okay, my driving instructor said I was okay, and even I said I was okay. And then I got up that hill and panicked when the handbrake got stuck and I panicked some more and the car died and I rolled down the slope. All this after I’d landed perfectly within the yellow line AND raised my hand.

So now I have to wait two weeks before I retake my test. Two weeks. I have a car and I failed my first test and have to wait two weeks for my second one. Everyone thought I was going to pass. Heck, I thought I was going to pass and that was the highest expectation of all. But no. What the hell did I do. Or rather what the hell didn’t I do. Now I have to miss another day of school. Now I still can’t use my car legally on the road. Now I’m still a failure.

Let me confide this in you: all along, everything I did, I expected victory. Or in blander words, things to work out right. Every single time. And every single time, ever since I dubbed in perfectionism, I did. I passed. I won. I was victorious. Up until this year. Twenty twelve was and who knows, still is a year of failures. I failed my violin exam for the first time, I failed to get the ASEAN scholarship, I failed my driving test. It was a hard punch in the face after so many years of perfect triumphs. This is either my luck and/or skills going downhill or just me stepping into the real world. I really hope it’s the latter, otherwise I might be consumed once again.

The worst thing is I know I can do it. I can pass this. This isn’t hard at all. I’ve done this multiple times. I’ve prepared myself for this moment. Things weren’t that bad when I failed my violin exam, because I knew I didn’t practice enough, and I was expecting a fail. But not this. Everything was absolutely perfect, building up to this moment, and then I literally roll downhill and ruin everything.

I’m not accustomed to failure, I will admit this. I’ve led an invincible life all these years, pretty much born with a silver spoon in my mouth. People fail and get up and try again and learn in the process but I haven’t failed enough times to do the same. Looking at everyone else around me doing what I failed to do that ONE TIME is really a hard hit. I can do this. I could’ve done this. But there are no second chances in things like this. At least, not for another two weeks. Now everyone is going to feign surprise when I tell them I failed my driving test. If you see this, please don’t do that. In fact, please don’t bring it up at all. Mentioning it on the Internet is one thing but mentioning it face to face is another entirely.

But contrary to what I’d initially wanted to do, which is not talk about this at all, I’m going to do so because not talking about my failures is going to hurt me so much more than the opposite. So there, I’m baring my weaknesses to the “real world”.

And now I’m going to keep this feeling of failure from consuming me by crying alone, something which I very much wanted to do on the spot but couldn’t.

Crisis Week Day 1: Trip to Hatyai, Thailand

What is Crisis Week?

I realised I’ve never blogged about a single trip to Hatyai despite the multitude of times I’ve been there so this is going to be an ironic first.

We set off at 9.30 AM and reached Hatyai about an hour and a half later, when we headed to Boat Bakery for breakfast.

It was a bakery-cum-restaurant which we frequented to have breakfast everytime we went to Hatyai and this time it was no exception. The food isn’t too grand but their fried bread dish is a constant favourite. Their bakery’s very nicely decorated, but they don’t really sell much in the bakery since most of their bread and pastries are homemade.

Next we went to Robinson mall where we shopped for clothes and I got myself a very lovely round-collared polka dot dress which I (possibly) want to wear forever.

My #ootd as many Instagrammers would say

Fun fact: at one point, the supermarket radio started playing One Thing. Haha. Why. Go away. Leave me alone.

And then we went to the market where we shopped again (is there really anything else to do in Hatyai?) where I also found a Ramones shirt which I didn’t buy because it was white and not this.

Thai lady selling coconut drinks at the market.

After that, we went to Big C supermarket where we shopped some more, this time for toiletries and food items but in my case, also clothes. And a pair of shoes. By the time we were done, it was already evening so we decided to have dinner at Sizzler’s at Lee Gardens.

The food was great, more than satisfactory, but there was a constant nagging anxiety at the back of my mind that this was the site of a bombing incident a few months ago so that wasn’t very nice. Thankfully, the plates of wondrous food in front of me managed to keep those thoughts at the back of my mind and my digested food in my stomach.

And then it got dark and we went home. The end.

I know what you’re thinking, that this is such a boring post but that’s actually what it is though, a boring trip. Well, it wasn’t entirely boring for me because I got new clothes for myself and you who are currently reading this didn’t so I suppose it is mighty boring for you. Travel posts would be more interesting if there was sightseeing but no one goes to Hatyai to sightsee so I’m going to grace the last bit of this post with a collage of my loot today:

Cheers!

WordPress Mid-Life Crisis Week

Taking a leaf out of Charlie McDonnell’s book, this is what I’m going to be doing for the whole of next week: I’m going to be blogging every day.

Contrary to his reason for the existence of such a week (which is his perfectionism leading to him deleting videos he made and end up not updating his YouTube channel), mine is more of a getting-my-lazy-ass-back-to-blogging reason.

Blogging hasn’t been easy for me lately because a) I have done nothing remarkable of late since all I do is go to school, come home, revise, sleep, rinse and repeat: the woes of an SPM student b) expressing opinions publicly on a website that many people I know in real life visit is quite a hazard and c) all that is left to acceptably talk about is One Direction and I’m pretty sure Careful Confessions has seen enough fangirling posts now.

Hence, in order to shed off this shell that has kept me from real blogging, I’m going to try this Mid-Life Crisis thingmabob to see how it turns out. Mind you, my life is still going to be as less remarkable as it has always been but let’s put my Joy Detecting Skills* to the test. * the ability to detect entertaining and amusing moments in one’s mundane routine-centred life.

And now, as a sort of opening ceremony to my Crisis Week, I’m going to tell you about my day today.

I woke up blazingly early today: 8.30 AM, and couldn’t go back to sleep, which is surprising because 8 to 9 AM is my Roll Over and Go Back to Sleep period. So I got up, cleaned up and obeyed my basic human instinct to search for food in the kitchen downstairs.

No one was around though, so I went outside to find my parents washing the cars and the house compound so I went to help out. Two hours later, I was sweaty and absolutely famished as I threw myself into a 20-minute cold shower, feeling the cleanest I’ve ever felt in a while.

And then, because it was only right we treated ourselves after a long morning’s hard work, we had Indian food at Mysore Curry House and if it’s one thing in this world that can make me happy it’s Indian food. I could write ballads and sonnets about the glory and beauty of Indian food. When One Direction sang about “that One Thing”, they meant Indian food.

As usual, I overate and came to regret it later, but there’s no fault in eating good food because…IT”S GOOD FOOD!!

We went to Alor Setar Mall after that because it had been some time since we last went there (and also because I heard a new Chatime franchise had opened there) and…that’s what we did. I hate sentences like these, it’s so tedious and boring, let me rephrase.

Riding our horses, it took us about three days to reach the Mall, and even then, it took us half the time to get in because it was swarming with people. In the end, we managed to worm our way through the huge throng of people to get to Chatime, only to be surprised by the wild presence of a Factory Outlet Store which no one warned us about.

I’ve turned into those kind of girls haven’t I…whatever there is absolutely no legitimate reason to pass up a lovely Jasmine Green Milk Tea

After I reached home, came the biggest highlight of my day: a three-hour nap. Actually no, that wasn’t the highlight of my day. In fact, it was the complete opposite. In fact, I think my day would’ve been close to perfect if it wasn’t because of that three-hour nap during which I had a horrible nightmare in which me and the other Form 5 prefects were at this yoga house and we were trapped there trying to look for a way out until we stumbled upon this long corridor with a steel door at the end of it so I started towards it but then I realised there were red laser beam tracks (which were tracks that showed where laser beams would go when they’re switched on) (and by laser beams I do mean the red coloured ones you see in movies which safeguard something valuable in a vault or something) (bringing back the multiple parentheses awyiss) covering the entire floor and surrounding it was a force field which induced uncomfortableness and pain so frightened, we left the room and looked for a way to escape until we realised that the entire house was covered with laser tracks so me and another prefect (I don’t remember who) exited the house and climbed to the neighbour’s house only to find it covered with the tracks too even though it was a “guardian’s” house and then we found out that the other prefects found a safety spot so we headed for the only room in the house that had no tracks only to have someone find us and tell us that the Safety Room was only available to old and sick people and we had to endure the laser beams when it was time and PLOT TWIST! that was how their “yoga” was carried out, by enduring low power (but still painful and headache-inducing) laser beams for a period of time and it was so horrible that when I woke up I had a throbbing headache and felt moody.

So that was all that happened, and I look forward to a successful Crisis Week. See ya!

Friday Feels

Today was MTV’s Video Music Awards 2012 and my babies bagged three Moonmen for Best New Artist, Best Pop Video and Most Share-Worthy Video.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to win a Moonman for you guys,” said Harry Styles during Hasbro’s twitcam yesterday, not knowing that they will be winning all the awards in the categories they were nominated in.

Look how far they’ve come! And they deserve every bit of what they have now. It’s their year, it’s their goddamned well-deserved year and I’m just so, so proud of them.

Okay that’s enough 1D feels for a blogpost, all my 1D feels are usually directed to my tweets but I’m overwhelmed with feels today so I hope you won’t mind this leakage.

Apart from that, I also got my car today. Yes, my car. MY CAR. I HAVE A CAR!

Introducing the Harry Mobile (credit to Thira for helping me to come up with that ingenious name)!

It’s no Mini Cooper, but it’s very well-conditioned and has a built-in CD player (I’m sorry, I’m just very happy this car comes with a built-in CD player) and is just wonderful and great and very nice and THANK YOU DADDY THANK YOU MUMMY!

Hands itching to get on the steering wheel, I gave the Harry Mobile a test drive around the neighbourhood:

And yes, that is me in a pair of pajama bottoms, I don’t wanna talk about it.

Okay you want more feels today? Recently, Soo May Jie Jie told me she had two media passes to go watch The Wanted live at Sunway Lagoon and I got so excited, thinking the show was on 14th of September, a Friday, hence I’d be able to attend the concert but it turns out it’s actually on the 17th, a Monday, and also so very coincidentally the day I will be sitting for my JPJ driving test.

Figure out the math by yourself. But don’t talk to me about it. Ever. Discussion about The Wanted’s concert is strictly forbidden within a mile radius of my presence.

OH DID I SAY I WAS DONE WITH ONE DIRECTION FEELS? BECAUSE I FORGOT ONE VERY IMPORTANT DETAIL:

THIS is a video recorded by my friend Mackenzie from yesterday’s Hasbro twitcam aka the video in which Harry Styles says hi to Michelle aka ME

And that’s all folks! Let’s get this trials thing over and done with in four days, shall we?

IT’S THE WEEKEND OH MY GOD

I have never been so happy and glad that the weekend is finally here. This entire week has slugged by so, so slowly that my entire body literally feels heavy from the weight of this entire week.

For the clueless, I had and am still having my SPM trials since the starting of this week until the 11th of September. The first week of trials was especially tiring, because they managed to cram six subjects (thirteen papers) in the span of five days. So it was an entire week of not writing at all during Raya holidays and going back to school writing ten pages a day. Not to mention that all subjects were heavy subjects (BM, English, History, Moral, Chemistry, Biology), so there was literally no time to sit down and rest because before you’ve even finished revising for tomorrow’s paper, you start worrying about the day after tomorrow’s paper and it’s been so hectic and exhausting and I haven’t even told you the best thing out of all of this yet.

I fell sick the night before the first day of trials. The traditional combination of fever, inflamed tonsils and flu. So I went to school feeling like passing out in the middle of all my papers and spent several restless nights having nightmares about falling asleep in the middle of a test and not being able to finish a paper in time while waking up in the middle of the night with snot clogging up my respiratory tubes.

But that’s over and done now and at least I can take a breather today so after I finish up this post, I’m going to finish The Da Vinci Code while listening to Ben Howard on loop.

Trials aside, some of my friends and I got to thinking randomly the other day that we only have three months left in school. Technically, we only have two months because the last month will be spent sitting for SPM and I don’t think that counts at all. Two months. Two months. Where have the times gone? (WOW no I definitely didn’t mean to sound like I quoted that Maroon 5 song but I guess that’s what you’re already thinking anyway.) No like honestly, I’ve been in this school for five years? And I’m leaving soon? And I’m leaving my home and my parents and everything in Alor Setar soon? What?

Two months suddenly doesn’t seem like enough time to…well, I don’t know, to spend time properly here I guess because two months will definitely fly by so quickly, not to mention that in those two months I’ll definitely be extremely busy and occupied with SPM so time will zoom past in the blink of an eye and I don’t want that to happen. I want a proper, dramatic and impactful goodbye like how Holden Caulfield would want it to be. I don’t want to treat leaving Alor Setar as a mere rite of passage, so I’ve decided to start this sort-of project called Collecting Memories (I’m sorry for the cheesiness I thought of it in the middle of Biology paper 1 okay) which involves creating a journal to have people in school write in their honest goodbyes to me before these two months are up. I might possibly also write letters to some people so at least, you know, they’ll have impactful goodbyes too. And yes, I know what you’re thinking, that this will probably end up like one of my abandoned projects again (remember Project More and my 50 books in 2012 challenge? Well at least I’m almost halfway through the latter, I’ve read 25 books so far) but I promise you I will try my best to make this project work.

Speaking of letters, I’ve been having a letter fetish lately, evident in my sending letters to Sakina, Mei, Ellie, Effie, Elya and Paik Suan a few weeks ago. I got a reply letter from Paik Suan last week and as she had requested in aforementioned letter, I’m posting a photo of it here:

Paik Suan’s very colourful and lovely letter with honorary mentions of Tom Daley and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Paik Suan, if you’re reading this, I know I promised to write you back last week but trials have been maddening so I will write your reply today. As in now.

That’s all folks!

Some Opinions About Opinions

So here’s the thing. I like a band which people either extremely love or extremely hate.

Perfectly symmetrical, perfectly normal. Hatred and dislike must exist to complement love and adoration.

I also understand that different people have different opinions, and that we are a species who like to express their opinions publicly. And that’s all very fine, until people start to direct those hateful comments towards you. Multiple times.

Would you believe me if I said I’ve gotten a fair amount of disdain comments ever since I started liking One Direction? It’s gotten to the point that admitting one likes One Direction is an invitation to sneers and teases. Disliking someone for their horrible attitudes is one thing, disliking someone for their music tastes? I don’t get it? Someone enlighten the dusty corners of my mind which fail to allocate the logic to this?

To emphasise, everyone has their different opinions, different tastes in music, different tastes in men or women, different tastes in clothes, different tastes in pizzas et cetera and it’s okay to say you like this or you like that or you dislike this or you dislike that and then you know what you should do after that? You should shut up about it. Imagine sitting through dinner listening to someone telling everyone, “Hey, you know what? I hate doorstoppers.” “Don’t you think doorstoppers are so, like, irrelevant?” “Doorstoppers? More like doorstupid! Haha!” “You like doorstoppers? Ew! Are you okay!” “Lord help me, why do so many people like doorstoppers, I just don’t get it?” “Listen, I think y’all need a brainwash, doorstoppers are so not cool.”

UM OKAY?????? I think we all get it that you dislike something but don’t go around flaunting your dislike like it’s a shiny trophy everyone wants to kiss. Spare us all your wit and let us get on with our lives while you struggle through yours. Maybe if you put as much dedication into fixing that habit of yours as you do in your spiteful comments, everyone (yes, including you! Oh my God! Shocking!) might lead happier lives.

Oh, you want another example closer to reality? Say you know someone who likes K-pop (this is a non-biased example because I don’t like K-pop). You follow him/her on Twitter and are friends with him/her on Facebook. Heck, even if you live next door with him/her, and all you see on your timeline and newsfeed and listen to from the neighbouring house is K-pop, why would you mention them/post on their wall/scream at them through the gate that it is WRONG for them to like something which makes them happy and is practically none of your business huh huh why don’t you keep your opinions to yourself. Or a better and simpler idea would be to unfollow or unfriend or move if you really can’t stand it.

So what if I like a British boyband who sings teenage boppy songs that they don’t write themselves? So what if I like to read YA books? So what if I eat cereal for supper? So what because you don’t have a say in any of this!!!!!!!

I’ve been to many Last.fm and Youtube pages where people leave hateful comments at an artist’s page. If you really hate someone so much why would you even go to his/her page to criticise them? Are you trying to make a point because I don’t see one. Whenever someone does that, I imagine a poor little kid in his or her dark room with the lights off shedding tears over how completely offended he or she is by this band or musician or tv show or movie or actor or ice cream flavour that she clicks on their offensive fanpages and starts typing “VANILLA ICE CREAM IS THE WORST ICE CREAM EVER!!!!!!!! F A C T!!!!!! ALSO U R UGLY” with such intensity that it sends vibrations throughout the table as the kid blows into his or her tissue for the twelfth time.

Do you want to be the crying kid in the dark room? Do you?

People are people; you are you; they are them. You are not them, they are not you, neither do you control them nor they you. The world is made up of various and vastly different things, we can’t all expect everyone to like the same things we do. It’s the 21st century, people should be able to like whatever they want without receiving destructive and pointless criticism.

From the mouth of Thumper himself, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.”

You know who else agrees with me? My friends Mei Lee, Mark Foster (1) (2) and Ed Sheeran (1) (2).

I’m sorry if I offended anyone but I’m just sick and tired of people’s constant judgments about something that doesn’t concern them at all. You might think this post seems hypocritical but at least I’m not shoving my opinion down anyone’s throat.