I hate it when people cancel at the last minute and make the whole group wait. Just my luck that both of my group projects include one of these people. Unless it involves a life or death situation, honour your commitment especially when there are other people counting on you!

You have family problems? Well so do I. You don’t need these couple of hours to work through them- solve them in your own time! You’re sick? Well so am I. You could have gone to the doctors yesterday or this morning. You’re not going to die if you spare a few hours this afternoon for acting.

It will be a miracle if any of these movies are done on time with the level of responsibility and commitment I am seeing from my group. This is why I prefer to fly solo.

I shuffle through the green maze of uniforms through the hallways, down the staircases, in the cafeteria and within the classrooms. I am jostled around in the crowd, just another nameless face taking up precious space. I thought I had made a name for myself. I thought the recognition, the grades and the approval from adults would make a difference. You know, set me apart. Give me purpose. All I feel is suffocated. 

I am just living each day like I am waiting for a doctor’s appointment. Months and months in the waiting room, whiling away the time with magazines and other nonessential pass-times…until it is finally my appointment. The day I find out whether I live or die.

Never more have I wanted so desperately to break out of these cold, oppressive cement walls and inhale delicious life. I want to see more than school buildings, smell more than burning construction dust, hear more than the senseless chatter of mindless conformists, touch more than a black board marker, know more than ratios and functions. Maybe fall asleep on the beach. Or at least be somewhere that has a beach.

When I woke up today, all I wanted to do was snuggle up in my bed, watch some movies, drink plenty of fluids due to my worsening cold and maybe scroll through a couple of blogs on Tumblr. But no, I woke up to anons-stirred drama. 

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it when my followers defend me and all but there’s a way to do everything and sending harassing anonymous messages in my defense is not it. If you see some suspicious activity regarding intellectual property theft please just alert me about it. I don’t need you to go handling my problems. No matter what it is, at the end of the day, it is just Tumblr. There is no need to go around picking fights on the Internet.

No matter how distasteful the situation is, there is always a calm and mature way to work it out. Perhaps it could even be just a case of misunderstanding. 

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I can go back to drowning in the sea of Kleenex I have created in my bedroom and hopefully squeeze in a couple of fun fact about the Russian Revolution. Not that it will matter because at this rate, school on Monday is most definitely out of the question. 

After a little situation regarding intellectual property theft, I am seriously contemplating removing my public themes. I spend hours envisioning new designs in my mind, coding them, creating graphics for them then finally editing them for public use. I used to love uploading themes for my followers because I know not everyone has time to create themes and it’s always a wonderful feeling when you can help someone out. But now, with all the drama that comes hand in hand with uploading your creations into the cyber world, population a zillion, it has become too much work for me to deal with everything. Try and I might not to care, it is impossible not to feel defensive when you see a bootleg version of your designs floating around or someone using your creations without credit. 

Everyone says “imitation is the greatest form of flattery” but somehow, I don’t feel flattered, just ripped off. 

First day back at school and I am already swamped with assignments and tests. Oh how I have not missed high school life. On top of all that, I have not had a single square meal upon returning to campus.

Just when we thought our school’s cafeteria could not possibly become more atrocious (although all evidence said otherwise if it’s steadily deteriorating state since day one was any indication), it surpassed our expectations, and somehow the food is now more oily, salty and inedible than ever before. We also have two hundred new grade 10 students this semester which adds to the already over-crowded cafeteria. It is now virtually impossible to find a seat and buy your meal within half an hour if you do not reach the cafeteria within three minutes after class ends. Where on Earth is our expensive private school using our money if not to provide us with nutrition? I’d settle for less-than-healthy, for crying out loud, if it meant I could actually buy food (they ran out of beef noodles after I stood in the queue for 40 minutes so all I had to eat was tofu noodles minus the tofu because it tasted like the chef accidentally spilled an year’s supply of salt into the thing) and/or eat it without throwing up. Okay, enough complaining.

I have to say, I am loving my new classes! This semester should be more relaxed than the last since all my course are in the art/humanities area which is my strong suit. I’m really excited for my acting class because we might be doing something in a public setting and also for my IT class.

Meanwhile, I must get back to adapting Hamlet into a 5 minute play. Leave me some messages to cheer me up? :)

There used to be this guy in my homeroom who was really good at tutoring me in math in a way I could actually understand. So I used to go to him for every self-study session. He left our school last year but is still in contact with many of our mutual friends.

In my last, post, I talked about my day out with one of my good friends. For some reason, she likes telling me about her conversations with this guy. From her contact with him after he left, turns out he is actually a douche bag with a sky-high ego. It’s really amazing how wrong you can be about a person. He seemed like, I don’t know, the cute nerd type you know? Anyway, I was never interested in him that way so it was so entertaining to hear the things he says. The day before, he and my friend and dinner which means more monologue entertainment. My friend filled me in on everything that happened. It was funny but I could not figure out why she was telling me all of it until she said the conversation turned to me. I can’t remember how but it did. I’ll cut all the preamble. What basically happened was he thinks I’m cute and also that with his “superior looks” and “charm” and my “easy-going” nature, he could “get me”, no sweat. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more insulted. Then it got me thinking. Aside from the fact the guy thinks he’s God’s gift to earth (he’s not even that attractive though), do I lead guys on? Here’s the thing: I have a lot of guy friends and I’m really comfortable around them, a few in particular. With the guys who I consider as my friends with no potential to be nothing more, I never think before speaking. In contrast, with a guy I actually like, I’d be more distant and cold. I’m not playing hard to get by any means- I’m just shy like that. 

I had this really good guy friend who moved back to Canada (we still keep in touch via MSN though). All of our friends were sort of a group so we’d hang out a lot on the weekends and such. We’d also talk in classes we had together and chat on MSN. But when he asked me out, it took me completely by surprise. I refused and hoped things would go back to normal. For a while, it seemed as though it did until he asked me out again. It seemed as though he didn’t get the message. Was it my fault to have continued our friendship in the same way? Was I sending mixed signals? Sometimes, I feel like with boys, I’m playing with fire. In some ways, it is just as exhausting to be friends with guys as it is with girls.

People smoking in bathrooms just pisses me off. Of course, smoking in general has that effect on me but especially people who smoke in a public area that is going to affect others. I don’t give a shit if you want to die of lung cancer but don’t bring me down with you. I literally had to hold my breath in the bathroom for two minutes. Fuck.

The fact that I can access tumblr completely not to mention YouTube makes me fall in love with HK even more

I don’t want to become one of those girls who go crazy over stuff like this but I have to let this out because it’s been really bothering me. I am releasing public themes for people to use as a whole. I don’t mind if you edit it but please do not take apart my coding and use sections of it for your blog. Also, I know the idea of what is “copied” is very subjective but I really wish I did not have to go on someone’s blog and feel like “Whoa! Deja vu much?” I honestly don’t mind people taking inspiration from my themes but there is a line and I am afraid it has been crossed. Yes, I have been given credit for the coding. But what about the colour scheme, background and entire set up? Entirely from a previous theme I have not even released to the public yet. -le sigh-

I wish that you could have fought for me. That you could have apologized. That you could have been more understanding. That you could have dropped your pride. That you could have been there for me when I needed you.

I wish that I could have been stronger. That I could have been less temperamental. That I could have appreciated you more. That I could have listened. That I could have been more patient.

I wish I could forget and move on. But after everything I said last night, I missed one thing: “I still love you.”

I was having a rough week and unintentionally took it out on my mother. Despite being absolutely horrible to her, she still found a way to forgive me and treat me with even more love than before. Being a Chinese family, we are not as open about our feelings as Westerners, however, every word my mother speaks and every action she performs says more than a thousand I love you’s. I do not know how I got so lucky or what I ever did to deserve such a wonderful mother. Scratch that. I know I don’t deserve her at all. All I can do is remind myself of that every time I start to talk back or become unreasonable. Because my mother would do anything for me, even give up her life, and I want to be worthy of that.

{Warning: what follows is basically my stream-of-consciousness, a piece of prose that most likely will not make much sense or seem to have a point.}

I‘ve been feeling rather out of sorts lately. I’m tired and listless although there are so many obligations I need to attend to-my college applications, homework, school magazine, etc. Yet my permanently fatigued brain just seems to shut down until the last minute. I know what you are thinking: procrastination. However, I think the root of the problem sinks deeper than mere laziness.

Last week, one of my friends came to me with a problem. She felt she was becoming more distant from her friends and more of an outsider. It then hit me that for most of the entire 5 years that I have lived in China, I have felt like an outsider. I had grown so accustomed to the permanent state of mind that I was able to stuff it into a box and kick it into a dark corner of my mind. Don’t get me wrong, I have been happy on occasions. First was in grade 8 when I attended a music school. I feel like I matured so much there. I made girlfriends with whom I could joke around, I discovered the delight of teasing boys and the art of flirting and memories that were created were priceless. However, when I left, I did not keep in touch. I don’t know why. Maybe it was because of all the times I have moved (so far I have been to give or take 13 schools) and that I have never had the same friends for over an year. Such a lack of intimacy in my friendships means I have never sought to maintain them once I leave. None of my so-called “friends” bothered to keep in touch with me either. When I revisited once or twice, my previous best friend pretty much ignored me. It hurt me more than I cared to let on. It was like me being there and me leaving did not make much of a difference to any of them.

The next time I felt “included” was in grade 10, my first year at my current high school. I hung out with the “foreign kids” in our little elite english-speaking group. Sure we had SO many laughs nd great times but at the end of the day, most of them turned out to be two-faced backstabbers and almost dragged me down with them.

And now, my day consists mostly of study with a non-existent social life. I ruined (well, it was not completely my fault) my relationship with my boyfriend with whom I am currently in a limbo, never go out on the weekends anymore and am feeling utterly sick of life. I need a change. My whole life has been about change so the first time things have been stable, I can’t stand it. I just can’t. Cliche as I may sound, I feel like I am SCREAMING at the top of my lungs into a pillow. I hate this. I really do. Everything seems so meaningless. I feel so alone, I can’t concentrate, I don’t know what to do.

But it appears to have committed suicide. 

Do they not see how I need to concentrate on my studies and not get sucked into family drama? Do they not see that next month will possibly determine the rest of my life and the least they can do is provide meals on time?

Starting from tomorrow, I plan on taking my nutrition into my own hands and eating out. I would cook if I had any time between brushing up on algebra, racking my brains to churn out an essay every other day and stuffing my brain with endless vocabulary.

Obviously it isn’t their future on the line so I guess they’ve taken it as their personal vendetta to prevent me from fully immersing myself in my studies.

My lunch today. My lunch yesterday was McDonald’s. I would cook if there were anything to cook but there are only Chinese ingredients and I do not know the first thing about Chinese food. Now you see how messed up my family is when my parents are rowing. This month’s subject: my sister’s education/basically what they argued about every other time.

What I hate most about these disputes is how they objectify us as though we are not listening. Trust me, I don’t want to listen but that is easier said than done when their voices are like volcanic explosions reverberating throughout our apartment. I get it, my mum is mad. But that gives her no right to say that she does not want to raise three kids but has to raise us. I understand motherhood is not easy and we were quite the handful at a younger age, however, we were her choice. Where the hell does she go off saying something like that with us present? She also threatened to leave. I am not even worried anymore because every time they argue, and I mean every time, she has done the same. An empty threat is an empty threat. What maddens me is that every time she says to my dad, “You can have the kids.” Like WTF? I will not be given and settled like I am a bank account or a piece of land. I am your child! When most parents divorce (mine won’t, I am sure of it so this is just an example) both sides fight for the custody of their child/children. Not mine. Not to even mention my two sisters, aged 10 and 6 heard the whole thing too.

The most messed up thing is that I have heard these lines so many times in the past, they have lost any sort of emotional impact for me. It is like I am immune to feeling hurt by my family. I can only feel anger towards them.