Hello world, I am Sue Yenn

Her footsteps were even, almost measured, sounding “tuck tuck tuck tuck” every step to her door way at Redwood Avenue. Fumbling with her keys on her right hand, she let her brown hair linger in between her fingers on her left. The wind blowing below her earrings around her neck awakened her tired senses and the weight of her bag pack ceased to exist as her foot began lifting themselves to tap dance and trot the rest of her way back home.

She waltzed into her house and sunk into her two-seater sofa, pulling her phone out of her pocket as it vibrated through her blue jeans. 15 minutes later, a knock on the door forced her out of her comfort. “Hey you, come on in!” she opened the wooden door to the blazing sunlight and the sight of me. Despite our lack of acquaintance, she began opening up akin to a best friend; all I had to do was sit down and ask, politely, for her life story. It was like I had explicitly opened someone’s intimate diary in their unperturbed presence.

“I knew what I wanted to do since I was a child,” she started. “When I was little, my mom asked me what I wanted to do growing up. There wouldn’t be a moment of hesitation before I said I want to perform, I want to perform, I want to perform.” Her clearly enunciated words flew smoothly without turbulence from her lips, landed on the clean page opened on my VAIO notebook, but her eyes, with a single mention of her dream, it was her eyes that spoke more passion and conviction than her diction could convey. I did not know who she was other than her name, Sue Yenn Ng, and her place of birth, Malaysia but I was sold.

She twirled her hair with her index finger, looking out the window at the voluminous trees outside and their orange tinted leaves that would soon be naked in November, shading the small pools of water collected in the ridges of asphalt when she revealed her big plan to pack her bags and head northeast to New York to pursue theatre. Graduation may only come for her after next Spring, but I sensed immediacy in her voice; she was one of the last youth on the planet who understood the cruel intricacy of time.

As grand as the idea of New York may be, two years of raw experience as a non-equity actor in Michigan is weak due to the intimidation the Big Apple can cast on a 21 year old foreign student all the way from Malaysia. That wet foggy morning on her brown suede couch, I caught it – the rare passing moment when she looked away wistfully as if the only thing alive in the room was her and her buzzing television, even when she was talking to me. I stole a moment of her private reflection, her faraway stare and deafening silence sucked me into a vacuum void of everything except the things she was going to tell me next.

Back in her hometown Kuala Lumpur, Sue Yenn looked in the mirror and liked how she saw “somebody”. She was not a nobody – She won first place in the 17 Magazine Star Search contest, she represented Malaysia to Singapore for an acting gig. She felt worshipped by kids in her mother’s kindergarten school. Even so, it wasn’t really good enough by Sue Yenn’s standards. Jack of all trades, she may have been; her voice soared when she sang, her fair limbs floated with grace and charge when she danced and her heart filled with zest when she performed for gung ho crowds during cheerleading in high school, but her lack of formal training made her feel restrained and mediocre even when she was at her best – something she continued to deal with alone when she travelled halfway across the world to Western Michigan University after being accepted into their prestigious theatre program.

Burying her insecurity and self-critique behind closed doors, Sue Yenn watched herself take two steps back during her first year in college despite her many steps forward with a diploma of singing in hand accompanied with priceless exposures to violin and guitar. Closeted and trapped in her Asian skin that only brought cultural barriers which conceded relationships with locals, the first semester breezed by. Without much going on except hopping on the bus at 10 a.m. to class, supplying herself with a daily dose of intimidation and inadequacy, she would go home to an empty house that never became a home until her sister Sue Lynn joined her four solitary months later.

When Sue Lynn who is two years older reached the shores of Kalamazoo, life was a little less lonely for her baby sister. “Do you know those hot air balloons that seem to drift in the air aimlessly?” Sue Yenn questioned me when I asked of her relationship with her Psychology majoring sister. “Have you seen those weights that hold them down so they don’t go all over the place? Well Lynn’s just that. She’s my anchor.”

Most of Sue Yenn’s second semester back in January 2008 was spent working endless hours at Campus Kitchen. “I need the money. I’m sick of working at the cafeteria but my mom said to me, “I’m paying for your education, not to maintain you.”” she told me earnestly. She went on to explain that her parents give both her and her sister money only for rent which is $500 monthly and tuition fees. Nothing more, nothing less. “Mom wants us to fish, not give us fish.”

For serving plates after plates of tortilla chips with French onion dip, fried rice with Chinese pork sausage and macaroni and cheese, she made minimum wage along with not only jaundiced, scrunched up dollar tips but another benefit on the sides. Working with locals gave Sue Yenn a platform to build friendships she needed in order to feel assimilated with the Western culture. It was ironic. The 21 year old came to America to make something of herself in the theatre scene but it was when she busted tables to make long ends meet that she socialized and felt like it was her first, “Hell world, my name is Sue Yenn” moment. And the rest, as I would say it, is history in the making.

Our firsts of experiences may not be what make our lives, but they sure make our memories. Firsts usually occur when we were young – perhaps the reason why they are forever etched in our minds, refusing, dejecting any attempts of dismissal – and though we may overlook them or in Sue Yenn’s case, look too much into them, years down the winding road we would eventually see them with new pair of eyes and be reminded of what was and notice what was not.

Miss Saigon was supposed to be Sue Yenn’s perfect first. It was her first semester at WMU, her first official audition as a serious actress and she felt her destiny calling to her. Miss Saigon was the reason why she wanted to act. When she walked into the audition hall and found that she was the only Asian in the wilderness she was confident the part belonged to her and no one else. Destiny. She looked the part, she played the part. The only problem – she did not get the part. “I was the walking Miss Saigon among the sea of Caucasian faces who auditioned! I remember thinking to myself, I must have been so bad to not have gotten the leading role,” the almost-Miss-Saigon confessed. “I was devastated, completely upset.”

When her shot came to test her acting chops for the second time on American soil, Sue Yenn did what she does best in defiance of her self-esteem resting restlessly on a thin barbwire; simply because she knew what she wanted and she knew how to get it – audition. On present day, Sue Yenn turned to me with a straight face, “Here’s the thing. I learned the most valuable lesson an actor can learn the hard way. An actor’s job is to audition, not to act. If you are lucky, you get the gig. That’s how it is.”

The audition was a role in The 25^th Putnam County Spelling Bee theatre production. No it was not Miss Saigon, but it was a chance to work with professional equity actors at a small recognized theatre. The entire theatre department in Western Michigan University competed with 1,800 others from all over the nation. There were nine parts to be auditioned for and casted, three of which were snagged by WMU pupils. This time, Sue Yenn was one of them who travelled 75 minutes every summery Tuesday to Thursday for a month to Mason Street Warehouse in Saugatuck.

Her debut success suspended part her lack of self-belief, sunk her incredulity of her capabilities to lower levels but it also raised a new concern, one that posed as much as an obstacle as a blessing in disguise. “I hate being an Asian actor. Roles in plays are mostly based on the original cast, and how many solid Asian roles are out there for grabs, you know?” For those who have modesty holding their backbone in place, accompanied with a spine weakened by self-consciousness, they question their success as an involuntary reflex. “The breakout role I got was an Asian schoolgirl in Spelling Bee. For a long time I wondered if I got that role just because I was Asian and I was needed to fill the part.”

After an hour of burying her toned full-figure in the comfort of crème cashmere blanket and suede pillows, Sue Yenn rose to split her legs to her sides and stretched to reach her toes. As chatty as ever, she said, “Another thing that sucks about being Asian, and I’m sure you get me here – we were taught to shut up. Right? Right?” She was turning her head towards Sue Lynn for accord. Sue Lynn, who came home from lunch an hour ago and had been observing her sister tell her life story since, nodded. She continues, “In Chinese elementary school we were taught to shut up and just tahan tahan tahan.” Tahan means ‘endure’ in the Malay language. “We had trouble opening up and talking to people here because of our culture back home,” Sue Lynn offered.

As if being a minority in a foreign country isn’t enough of a challenge, Sue Yenn doesn’t think the small town geography of Kalamazoo helps. Three weeks ago Sue Yenn travelled east to New York to visit her vacationing mother and felt perfectly in place at that corner of America because “to be a minority in New York is to be the majority.” Kalamazoo is pretty much otherwise. Last summer, Sue Yenn and four of her best girlfriends popped into Y-bar for a girls’ night out. But when they made a trip into the bathroom together with beers in hands, giggles and harmless gossip on their lips, an American on her way out walked into them and announced with snide, “Woah. Asian invasion!” Her friends continued giggling, but Sue Yenn did not.

She certainly was now, giggling away while recalling how mean girls can be to each other. Sue Yenn grew up as an avid church-goer, but her father who now works in Bangladesh and is in a long distance relationship with her mother, was not Christian. So in a feeble attempt to nudge his way into the holy temple every Sunday, Sue Yenn with Sue Lynn performed every Christmas. It was year 1994 when she was to perform Silent Night with the choir with a solo on her part in front of her family and close friends. A perfectionist even at 6, she practiced every night even though she was losing her little voice. On Christmas Eve, her solo came like she anticipated, but her sweet voice did not. She froze. After the performance, the pastor’s snotty daughter came up to Sue Yenn backstage and said, “The whole performance was perfect, until you ruined it.” Sue Yenn was upset, she didn’t remember if she cried, and the night might not have been perfect, but at that moment it certainly was ruined.

Having done some growing up since then, Sue Yenn realizes now it is not about being perfect, but “to have friends in the theatre world you have to be somebody. If you are talented, people would want to know you. But if you’re too good, you become intimidating. It is good to be at par, in between the two.” With that being said, Sue Yenn remains grounded to Earth despite being awarded a theatre scholarship worth a thousand dollars a year.

Rubbing her feet tired from doing bombershays in class, she told me about her packed schedule which includes rehearsals for a traditional musical theatre Carousel. As tired as she said she is expecting her body to be starting next week, with Mondays to Fridays of 8 a.m. classes that progress to work until 9 p.m., which moves on with dance practices that end at 11 p.m., she had a face of someone who is doing what she loves and there is not a hint of dread. If anything, she sounded excited to begin.

“I barely have leisure time. When my friends ask me out, my answer is always, “I can’t, I’m sorry.” Well, I can, that is if I don’t ever shower or sleep,” she laughs. As a performer, Sue Yenn feels she needs to take care of herself – watches what she eat, get enough sleep. “That one time I went to Y-bar with my girls, I drank once to toast to a friend’s birthday. Not only did I get snapped by the ‘ang moh’ in the bathroom, I had a late night – I went to bed at 3 a.m. Next morning during my voice lesson, I could not sing – at all! I croaked my way through 15 minutes before my instructor sent me home.”

“But I have no complains. My life is great. I am lucky to be in America, doing what I always wanted to do.”

“Really? Are you sure?” Sue Lynn teases.

“Well okay, if I can have one thing in my life right now… I want a professional masseuse in my house massaging every inch of my body every night!”

Nine Years in a Day

When I was seven, my parents asked me a question I was only too eager to answer. My ears perked up as I little body did in the backseat of a white 1997 Proton Saga when my dad smiled at the rearview mirror and went, “So Jolene, if I were to let you pick between piano and violin what would it be?” I was as excited as a kid in a candy store. In fact, I might as well have been a kid in a candy store, except that in my world the store was filled with pretty melodies and symphonic lullabies instead of gummy bears and M&Ms. In my world, the candy store was a music shop my dad would visit later in the day to get his favorite girl her first musical instrument.

It was 1:30 in the evening the next day and I was tired from a day of grammar and art, but since I knew I had a planned surprise awaiting me, I remained bubbly and held my breath all the way during the bus ride home. I always had trouble forgetting that particular day, particularly that moment when I burst through my apartment door to set eyes on the exquisite taupe magic instrument sitting there in the living room, like it had been there for longer than we had, like no piano came before it and none would come after. It was not boastful, in fact anything but. It fitted in the tiny space my parents, brother and I called home so perfectly, as though the house was designed with it in mind. It was hard for my imaginative 7 year old mind to conceive the idea of our home without it. It fit right in with our humble abode; it fit right in with my heart.

Children believe in destiny and I was no special child. It was a fairy-tale and daddy’s little princess was in love. My first piano lesson was intimidating as I perspired through my Minnie Mouse t-shirt, struggling to read music but much like riding a bike, once I got through the first bumps and bruises, it was pretty much smooth sailing from then on. Although I would later learn that I was wrong, that the smooth sailing was just the calm before the imminent storm, in the mean time I was happy as a lark singing, showing off to my parents the one song I had mastered thanks to Miss Janet.

Every Thursday at ten to three, I would make a dash to ride the elevator to the 7th floor of my apartment building, knock a playful beat on Miss Janet’s door and spend 45 minutes in blind bliss. Little did I know a few years down the road I would find myself taking my time making my way to the elevator, unfazed that it was already ten past three. I dreaded the soft “ding” that the elevator would make when it reached my level. And instead of the cheerful greeting that never escaped the lips that knew only sweet rhymes and kind words, I thumped my heavy fist on the door and dragged my limp feet into the room where the piano sat only to sigh at the sight of it. This was the year 2006; I was 16. Daddy’s little princess had grown up.

My tiny fingers used to glide over the black and white keys with such grace and precision that anyone would think my mastery of the art of piano would just get easier over time. They could not be more mistaken. Sure, my fingers grew longer and I was able to spread them for triad after triad, octave after octave. My fingers – my new and improved weapon in my war with the 88 keys were challenged by complex compositions I failed to catch up with. “Read the music, Jolene, why can’t you just read the notes!” Miss Janet would instruct. “I don’t have to tell you every time that is a B flat, not a B.” I silently cussed at myself every time my index finger slipped from the note I was supposed to hit; I silently cussed at Miss Janet every time she pointed out the obvious to me. There is no annoyance like knowing you are repeatedly making a mistake, hating yourself for it, and hating the person who is supposed to help you correct it but cannot.

Frustration and panic were my constant companions. They were as well known to me as the Peter Pan tale through my experience with the one instrument Captain Hook was only too good at. Like a routine, a habit every Thursday, I stared at the manuscript of Bach’s Polonaise in G Minor with wide eyed wrath travelling across the page. The fear-inducing sheet of music from the 1600-1750 Baroque period was further disheveled and contaminated by Miss Janet’s scribbled tips and notes and the angrily written deadlines that had yet to seize a productive response out of me. I no longer wondered why they were called deadlines. I knew I was in trouble. “You have 3 weeks to the examination, Jolene. 3 weeks,” I replayed it in my mind at every bar of music my pale fingers attempted. “21 days, 2 hours and 50 minutes and you are nowhere near ready.”

I do not remember my transition from pure love of piano to clouded hate. The only thing I know for sure is that legendary Mozart and I have something in common; insanity. The legend indulged in music to escape from his insanity streak, mine developed because I dared to dream. Along the way, playing the piano stopped being fun and when it stopped being fun I stopped loving it. What piano represented to me in the later years was hard to love. The journey became a blurred juggle of theory and practical exams for close to a decade and the result, the genuine principle of the activity, love, was lost. When love is not fed with what it needs to survive, when Passion is absent, replaced with its worst nightmare, Chore, love dies a slow death. My diseased ambition drug on for too long before it gave up on me. No, that is a lie. I gave up on it, on myself. And there is not a day that goes by when I never look back at my “taupe magic instrument” with regret.

From time to time when the feeling of nostalgia takes over the best of me, I look for my pink folder that holds all my certificates to remind myself of what I have achieved in my world of music that once was. Flipping through yellow slip after yellow slip, I desperately search for any indication that may be there to prove my hard work. The blood, sweat and tears that I accumulated all those years must have left a trace somewhere. Well if they did I am certainly looking at the wrong place, because all I find are pages of guilt and pages of shame.

Every month for 9 years father spent $100 for my piano lessons and $700 annually for each of my two examinations. That is $23,400; that is also the down payment for a brand new Mercedes-Benz SL-Class luxury 2-door convertible, a sports car my father stargazed at since he was a child. Instead, he paid for my broken dream that resulted in nothing but champagne certificates which indicated no excellence, no distinction, no merits. If anything, they are now and always will be pieces of useless pulp celebrating my achievement in mediocrity. According to the British examiners who were inauspicious enough to have sat through my agonizing performances, yet kind or perhaps just deaf enough to not flunk me, I was not a failure; I was just not good enough. But deep in my heart, I knew the bitter truth.

I had failed.

Memory Revisited, Faith Restored

Tune in: Low vs Diamond - Annie

If you ever ask me why I love college, this I think would be the most honest answer I can provide. Here I give you, my assignment from ENGL 1500 Literature & Other Arts Class on my favourite experience with the arts and why I love it so much.

When I first stepped foot in Kalamazoo a month ago, I felt the gush of warm welcoming breeze of my new life run through my summer attire. I took a deep breath of the American air I have known to love since childhood and let my body relax if just for a moment. Despite my backache caused by the backpack clinging on to me for dear life, all my body managed to palpitate was the sweet lullaby of Bono singing the lyrics to Beautiful Day and the realization to the following truth. “So this is where it all begins,” I said to myself. “This is where it all begins.”

If we dare to care to look away from our reflection in the mirror and open our eyes and mind to our surroundings, we would notice that art follows us wherever we go, that art is present wherever we find ourselves – in obvious locations like the CD store and art museums and in subtle situations like when my headphones were playing when I begin day one of the rest of my life.

Most of us take art for granted like we do everything else that is never unfaithful. It is too easy to overlook the little things that shape our lives, the little things like art and love and family because we have never been without it. I for one have been faithful to the art that matters most to me, so much so that I am afraid that if I lose it, I lose my one companion, I lose myself.

One Tree Hill has been running for 6 years now and it is currently in its 7^th season. It has been 6 years since I was initially touched and heavily influenced by its stories, lifelines and values and although I am not the same girl I once was when I was 13 and I have been exposed to great if not greater arts along the way, I have never strayed far from the unsuspecting TV show that found its way to my reality and subsequently found its way to change it.

One Tree Hill is regarded as a work of art by some, an entertaining and scandalous drama by many, just a regular teenage series by most. What people don’t know is the magic that entails when a single source of inspiration bestows upon a lost 13 year old that was struggling through high school facing the biggest question anyone can ask themselves – Who am I. One Tree Hill was important to me because it journeyed with me through the most disconcerting periods of my life.

To say that One Tree Hill gave me wisdom and straightened my confusion about myself is to tell a partial lie. Wisdom churned in many forms. At the beginning of every episode of One Tree Hill came with a voiceover by the main character Lucas Scott. Why they were profound is self-explained by the quotes themselves.

The pilot of the show entailed, “There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. But omitted, and the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves- or lose the ventures before us," by Shakespeare in Julius Caesar. To this day I am amazed by how writer and creator Mark Schwahn managed to collaborate traditional literature with modern drama and did not sacrifice the credibility and meaning of the old sacred art despite the obvious disparity in timeliness of the two worlds.

With every borrowed quote such as, “As happens sometimes a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment. And then the moment was gone,” by John Steinbeck in Of Mice and Men, he created stories about young people alike to me, infusing what would be considered intricate, wearisome and old fashioned philosophy to people my age, breaking that down into something simple which makes perfect sense to our world, giving us for the first time on television, permission to feel like we are part of the legend of Julius Caesar, like we are one with the classic selflessness of George Milton of Of Mice and Men. By shedding a new light into the meanings of those famous quotes and bonding that newfound perception with contemporary lifestyle examples, Schwahn convinced me that my life could be just as epic as that of Caesar’s and just as righteous as that of Milton’s.

All that beauty emerged from the first 2 minutes of my favorite form of art. 2 minutes, out of 40 of every episode, audiences are taken back in time, given a peek of the intersection of our world with the ones that existed beyond us. For the rest of the 38 minutes, Schwahn’s own epic storytelling began.

From the very beginning I admired how One Tree Hill courageously stood out from the rest of other unintelligent, shallow teenage dramas playing at the time. Schwahn gave credit to youth by endowing the fictional characters with real emotions and wisdom beyond what is expected of them in reality. In simpler words, Schwahn tried educating us that adolescents are not all degenerates, we experience and survive as adults do, we hurt, we hope and we make mistakes along the way like they do.

The characters were admittedly not stripped off of clichéd everyday conundrums in entirety (it is a show targeted at adolescents after-all and it should mask situations they can relate to) but Schwahn was not embarrassed by that. He not only knowingly embraced but proudly carried the hidden raw emotions that real people would feel and naturally keep secret in fear of being misunderstood, brought them to up front and center through his character’s actions and reactions.

Schwahn’s method leads me to the realization that there might be a different story beneath the one we think we know, that sometimes we should give people a chance and read between the lines of obscurity and uncertainty. Thus, the show cultivates its audience to see beyond what is foully evident in people’s actions -no matter how heart-wrenching and unpleasant-, state of affairs and hopefully develop a wider view and deeper understanding of daily occurrences around us.

One Tree Hill did not only bless me with the birth of my interest in literature, it cultivated my newborn epiphany in music. It rightly steered away my fixation on pop culture and its overproduced pop music. Once again, its contemporary storytelling was accompanied by alternative music which explores the finer emotions human beings are capable of. No longer did my ears feasted on steamy and predictable beats of mainstream culture, I developed an intellectual apprehension of what music really is and what it can be.

I remember vividly, the first time I heard the Scottish band Travis’ song Re-Offender when it played in the background of a scene depicting a conflicted I-love-you-but-you’re-with-someone-else, too-little-too-late banality. It was as though I have never heard music before that moment and my ears have just been awakened from 16 years of deafening silence of distraught. It was then that I knew, that I have been living in a nutshell. I was surprised at how much of a revelation I made in 3 minutes of an alternative rock song, that kind of open eye experience usually takes place when one goes through a life turning event. I suppose that was mine.

That was 3 years ago. Today, the bands that I was exposed to, that were heavily featured in One Tree Hill such as Jimmy Eat World, Coldplay, Radiohead, The Fray, they never left my side nor my playlist. Despite the pretty melodies, what got me hooked right from the get go is how each scene in One Tree Hill is accompanied by the perfect song to highlight what is going on, handsomely furnishing the predicament that the characters find themselves in.

In season 3, episode 13, after Peyton Sawyer’s biological mother Ellie died, she dispersed Ellie’s ashes at Meadow Hills where she felt most alive. Then Peyton makes her way to school, in desperate attempt to get on with her day. Not too obscure in the background, the lyrics, “I woke up and wish I was dead, with an aching in my head, I lay motionless in bed. I thought of you and where you’d gone, and the world spins madly on,” were sung when Brooke, Peyton’s best friend hugged Peyton and cried together.

In another episode in season 3, Jimmy Edwards, a troubled boy who felt deserted and dejected by his family and friends, at a breaking point brought a gun to Tree Hill High School. Only one song played throughout. God Bless the Child by Michelle Featherstone could not have been more suiting. “God bless the child who can't find their way home, god bless the child who is weary and so. God bless the child who is broken and bruised, god bless the child who just wants to be good. Oh beware to take care of yourself.”

The magnitude of One Tree Hill’s influence stays with me till today - show in itself, the music, the literature that accompanies. These are the hidden arts that have always been part of my favorite show, unfortunately most of the time they remain sheltered by the show’s default status – a teenage drama on daytime television. This brings me to my fundamental point – Good art is embedded everywhere, we just need to look pass the artificial shiny shellac that surfaces mainstream pop culture. One Tree Hill has indubitably been my favorite experience with art. I would go as far as calling it responsible for the person I have always dreamt of being- the person I am now. In many ways Schwahn inspired me to write and create, to touch and perhaps someday make a fickle of difference in someone, the way One Tree Hill made a difference in me. As Lucas Scott said to Peyton Sawyer, “Your art matters, it is what got me here,” One Tree Hill and its art matters. One Tree Hill is the reason I am here.

-Terminated-

Armor girl

Tune in: Missy Higgins - Drowning

I have always considered myself as someone with very high morals. Confess I will of my juvenile days back when I was 16 with very low sense of candor and very high sense of amusement in the littlest things. But it's been some years since I was self-absorbed and all-knowing, and age, if not pending adulthood has changed the rules I live my life by. It's barely an overstatement to say that I am left out of the loop regarding what happened to my vehement youth as I travelled across bridges to the city of KL and across oceans to the solitude of Michigan.

As full of vulgarity as a cynic with a blue cheesed mouth I was, I find myself more toned down (read: washed out) and controlled and it comes to my surprise that with the regular self-check that I frequent lately, I think I would even call myself righteous.

Shocker.

But it is a sad story really. If you knew my reality, you would agree, if you knew you would not have been able to breathe out that giggle you were holding in reading the lines before this.

The only reason why I pride myself upon my piousness is I don't wish good things for myself as I watch strangers find happiness in the arms of the ones I care about deeply. Instead I secretly hope that perfect figure who found comfort with you finds love even though that love which conquers and belongs to me would hurt. Because as much as I want to be that special someone for well, that special someone, I would rather watch the fairy tale I dreamt happen from afar and know that it exists and it is real and possible for me - even if I am nothing more than the battered princess - than to crush it to crumbs in my gravelly hands by being myself and by wishing that I was the one you picked.

If I wish all those things, if I wish myself well, I am wishing for worse things than losing love. I am wishing to lose one of the best friends I ever had. And who is the armor girl to deny friendship, when that is all she can afford other than rust, dust and broken swords.

-Terminated-

Here is next door

Tune in: Ross Copperman - They'll Never Know

On a occasional-cum-regular basis, someone does something out of their way for me and I think I'm the luckiest girl in the world. It explains why I try hard not to take anything for granted, make sure I take it all in through and through, feel every trickle of emotion in and out and sideways and look back once in a while so I don't forget -- because forgetting is unacceptable when it's all you're capable of doing to do your blessings justice.

Or to do that person justice. Being alone in America this week has opened my eyes a little wider than being spoiled in Malaysia for years has. You know how people say, "You don't know what you got till it's gone?" That's bullshit. You know what you got even when you have it in the loosest grip of your palms, you just don't care because it has been there for so long so idly you weren't smart enough to think you would do more than blink when it leaves. You would blink more than tears when that moment comes, doesn't matter if you are only crying inside to your own broken soul -- you will still cry your balls (or g-spot if you're a girl) off.


---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ----------


Tune in: Britney Spears - Gimme More

Fall semester's only 2 more weeks away, and so is BRITNEY SPEARS live at Detroit!



For the hundreth time I'm feeling the little pinch of being a tad bit juvenile, this time for missing the first day of classes to catch a concert 2 hours away from Kalzoo. I know you must be thinking, "It's Britney, bitch!" and her being scantily clad should be good enough reason to play hooky but when Michael Jackson died I guess so did a little bit of my guilt that comes with the more than situational indulgence I spend on myself. Knowing that I'll never watch the King of Pop live, shout with every female audience when he thrusts his hips, cry and faint with the rest when he serenades thousands with You Are Not Alone, I told myself, never again will I say no to a concert. Not in any circumstance. Be it if the reason is finals or cousin on deathbed or sex on a silver platter of rose petals... Never. Again.

So Britbrit wait for me, I'ma comin'!

-Terminated-

Keep me a secret

"It doesn't take any space to be emotionally distant -- which is why we do it so well."

Smiling riddles

"I pretend to be happy -- but only for photographs. Because to look back in desperate hunt of good memories and be reminded of sorrow in sharp stills is more aching than a moment it would take to fake a smile."