I've been struggling with serious guilt issues over the past year. Mostly I've been upset over the fact that I don't make as much money as Mint, and that I don't earn enough to pay for my own school. If only I had won more competitions, I thought, or had gotten a couple more points on my ARCT, I could be more secure in my teaching career.

I remember last summer I would spend up to eight hours a day working the keys, practicing for the exam, and still dad would come in and yell: "Either you go to school or you get a job. Don't sit at home doing nothing."

He shut up quick when I started making money off of my music, but the parents never have a shortage of other things to yell about. I became deeply ashamed of coming from a dysfunctional family, of feeling like a tenant in my own house. I carried this deadweight secret around and I started feeling like deadweight myself; a blight and a burden to both my friends and family. I felt useless, but mostly I was scared. How will I impress Starr if I don't become smarter, happier, and more enduring - if i don't become a person of value? How will I ever be smart and resourceful enough to stand up on my own, to finally get me and Trumon away from this house?

The traits you hate most in yourself is what you judge most harshly in others. I hung around [MileyMakeup] a couple times this summer and I looked upon her with disdain. She's never volunteered, or had a job, or even been particularly good at school. Doesn't she know that the future is big and scary? How can she enjoy having a boyfriend, hanging out and spending money, or even her parents' love without having done anything to earn it?

But I love her regardless, and I realized I shouldn't have to do anything for parents and friends to love me either. I shouldn't feel guilty if my parents aren't smart enough to see my value. I should stop living for people who are impossible to satisfy, and start living for me.

I decided that I don't have to apply for part-time, minimum-wage coffeeshop work in order to be productive. So far I've been

• drawing (my art skills have reverted into almost nothing from 2 years of neglect)
• learning guitar and jazz piano
• studying French and learning Mandarin
• reading (finished the Beth Goobie and Robert Cormier collection at the library)
• getting in shape (ulti-ing and dragonboating 2-4 times a week)
• learning how to use InDesign and Illustrator
• spending time with my brother (accomplishment of the summer: getting him off the computer long enough to finish a novel!)

A lot of these are all loner activities; I spent a lot of this summer alone. It's not that I consciously decide to avoid people, more like I find myself gravitating away from the things they like to do. I don't believe in giving money to Hollywood movies, theatre/amusement park corporations, for example. I don't drink. I don't eat where everyone else likes to eat since I'm eating more raw and more vegan than ever. It's not fun to go to a restaurant and be the only one without food cause you either look out of place or you have to endure awkward conversations about why your diet is different from everyone else's.

I can't even find things to do with Mint anymore. I can't get excited about her fancy "ladies night out" parties of dressing up and going to eat fancy foods. I've decided that makeup is a waste of money (not to mention it's toxic) and that heels hurt too much to wear ever again.

Food has too much environmental and health consequence to not think about it; I can't understand when people don't. Their lack of conscience frightens me, and I don't know how to relate to them anymore. My grandmother had cancer and my grandfather died from it. And yet my mom still gets annoyed when I ask her to stop using styrofoam food containers and to stop going to McDonalds. People would rather donate to Heart&Stroke research than to give up their burgers and fries. I remember my high school physics teacher told the class that he looks down on people who choose to smoke, and yet he drank Coke every day.

Does it sound like I'm too angry or too boring because I do my best to avoid capitalist consumer culture? The tragedy of the Rat Race isn't just about having to spend 40 hours a week at the office - it's about how we don't know how to amuse or entertain ourselves anymore without spending money, how we compulsively use that hard-earned money to destroy both ourselves and the planet.

It used to be that I'd become emo and depressed when I felt left out and alienated, but now I'm secure about the choices I make and the person I want to be. If society doesn't have a place for me, then I'll make my own place elsewhere.

more info here Amnesty International

I got my essay back from DaisyDuke. I was smiling all the way back on the skytrain. I'm going to miss him.

Lookit that sexy professor scrawl! I need to get one of those.

And now, awesome pics to make you LOL. Why can't all Tse children be so photogenic?

I grew up with Msn and mp3s. My mp3 collection is severely limited because I don't normally download music on my own; I get people to send them to me instead. All those late nights on the laptop were spent typing into a chatbox, certainly, but also waiting for file trades to complete. It's more romantic than it sounds; after the words ran out, there was always still music left to share.

I never respected him enough to tell him, but I was angry when #2 snuck on my unattended laptop to copy all my mp3s onto his music player. These mp3s - they're not just listening material, sounds to sit on the bus to. I could go through my collection and tell you how Lime once sent me Baby When You're Gone to cheer me up, how Hyde introduced me to L'arc~en~ciel by dedicating a song to me on Mexican radio, how Vienna Teng defines the relationship between me and HuckDuck. The music we listen to makes up who we are, and my mp3 collection tells me about the people I've been close to. I share music with the people who matter (you Xangans), and so I felt violated when #2 came in without permission, as if he had seen something he shouldn't.

That was years ago, and now Web 2.0 has changed the field completely. Msn is dying - and the little fb chatboxes are not nearly so intimate as what we once had. Instead of sending mp3s, people now copy and paste Youtube links. There's a difference. An mp3 file sitting in your computer, specially handpicked and sent to you by a friend, is far more personal and tangibly yours than a link shared by thousands. How can I say Bryan Adams is a part of me, was a part of my childhood when Youtube tells me other people have listened to When You're Gone over 2 millions times?

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

JC saw that Starr had written a lot on my facebook and asked if we were dating. I was all fluttery for the rest of the day, but when the giggling stopped I wondered why JC had to point it out for me to see - it seems obvious now that Starr was at one point at least mildly interested in me. But the damage control kicked in and I told myself that it's wasn't possible, it'll never happen, I'm not smart or witty enough, he must have other, prettier friends. And then I miss what's right in front of me.

I don't hear from him anymore; Starr's too busy for me now. I stopped trying to contact him, but at least we're friends on fb. Starr is gone, at least for now, and without this last link he might as well be dead to me.

I'm not going to resort to blocking people, but if knew you IRL before you started reading my Xanga, I'm going to ask for you to stop reading.

None of my IRL friends blog as much as I do, and I don't feel like sharing my private thoughts if you're not sharing yours. 

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

1. http://radio3.cbc.ca/#/bands/Forest-City-Lovers

2. My body's been through every sort of of up and down this year. Last fall and spring, I found I actually lost weight when I do zero physical activity (I lose exactly 5 pounds of muscle when I don't exercise). I gained it all back to become a lean 110 lbs in May with my almost-abs when I was doing yoga three times a week. Now that I only have Ultimate once a week, I'm a pudgy 112 lbs, complete with a soft little belly.

   Sometimes I'm fond of the idea of being a little rounder, because I don't believe that women have to have flat stomachs to be beautiful. I like the idea that people will like me regardless of whatever tummy I have or don't, but I also like having abs.

   I vacationed with some high school friends last weekend and discovered that I eat as much as two girls combined. Time to learn the meaning of D-I-E-T.

3. [PianoStar] said on her facebook that you should "Never quit on your music because when something goes wrong, it's the one place you can always escape to and l e t i t a l l g o . ♥"  I realized that whenever the chips are on the ground, the first place I go to is my xanga. I am and artist and a musician, but I am first and foremost a writer. I was writing insane amounts last month and that's when I realized I'm actually not bad at it. I should work on getting published.

   It's not that I don't feel anymore like singing and playing the piano, but I don't feel like making music anymore at home, especially when the parents are around. There's been so much yelling and hatred in this house that there's no place anymore for beauty and art. Maybe that's why I've been so uninspired to write lately.

   I think that's the reason why I facebook/youtube/xanga so destructively. I don't even think about it anymore - when mom is finished yelling I automatically unfold the laptop and numb my brain on digital content until it's time for sleep. Who still does drugs any more?

4. Apparently the only style that guys like on a girl is long hair. That makes me want to get a boycut even more! Too bad I already invested a lot of money in a long hairstyle. I have to start cheating on my stylist cause he's too expensive : (

5. I miss Starr Je m'ennuie de mon Étoile.

So how's your summer going?

Apparently I blush when people tease me. I remember when I was a kid I thought the ability to blush on demand would be a great skill to have. I must have read too many Archie comics or something. I guess I wasn't a very good feminist as a child.

[DaisyDuke] made me blush today

[DaisyDuke] is my most favouritest TA. I adore him completely because he's brilliant and pretty and kind. Both he and Uncle Sam have a way of making people feel special, even though you know they do the same for everyone. I try to do that for people too, but it's different for girls. We're plastic and smiling all the time - how do I make it authentic? I just end up sounding bubbly and superficial.

Duke pointed out to me that I was doing well in school and should seriously consider getting a Master's. I was quite humbled by this remark because I can't imagine being as clever as Duke. Plus, a Communications Master's is about as useful as the Bachelor's so you might as well go for the Ph.D afterward, and I'm not sure if I wanna go that far. But the idea's been growing on me - I do love to read and to debate useless artsy topics. I'd be guaranteed a TA position if I become a grad student, and I do so love to teach. I shouldn't be so afraid of my potential.

We all skipped class today (his idea) and went drinking. I noticed just now that he could've sat next to anyone, but he choose the seat next to mine.

He's going back to the States on Tuesday so we won't see him again for years. I knew, coming to university that the teachers would be brillant, but I never expected them to care about us. I hope I can do that one day for someone else.

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

One of the worse things about adulthood is that my friends are now separated into those whom I either will or won't spend any money on. Certain people are priceless of course - I'll spend anything on Mint or on a night out with her. But I'm not earning very much atm, so whenever the more marginal friends ask me out I have to look at them and judge whether or not they're worth a $10 dinner or a $15 movie.

I miss high school, where you could just sit next to someone during lunch if you wanted to talk, or head out to the fields if you wanted to throw a disc. I'm not just being cheap - the best fun we had was always free.

you have to understand:
what's me
is me is mine

taking [us] from you
was never anything so sinister

i simply
found myself
in your heart

and then i
took [me] back

The ancient Egyptians used to remove body hair with a sugar-lemon-water concoction. It's kinda like waxing: you put the syrup on your skin, a piece of fabric on the syrup, and pull sharply to take everything off. Then you wash the gunk off of the fabric with warm water. It's a natural, reusable, waste-free method of hair removal, and it's now available in a conveniently commodied form. The MOOM company in Vancouver puts the syrup - something it takes 5 mins to make in your own kitchen - in a glass jar along with some strips of fabric into a box, and then sells it for $20!

Nonetheless, I picked up a bunch of boxes to give to my friends (I found them at Winners) because people have to be cooed at sometimes to do the environmentally friendly, and industrially produced plastic boxes are more impressive than my sketchy homebrewed jars.

I gave a box to KitCat today at the game. I wasn't going to at first cause she's not as environentally minded or as radical as some of my friends and I didn't want the MOOM to go to waste, but who knows? Maybe she'll like it.

"I have something for you!" I sing-sang while handing her the box.

"What is it?" asked Kitkat. She peered at the label and when she realized what it was she made an expression like I had just handed her a tampon in front of all our teammates and she hastily shoved it into her bag without another word.

Everyone knows that girls are socially obligated to present themselves as pure and clean and that therefore means going hairless. Unwanted body hair is universal among both men and women - it's not a secret. And yet, shaving is something embarassing we don't talk about; it's a private ritual of dirt removal that we practice in the secrecy of our bathtubs. After the criminal deed, we emerge from the bathroom and pretend as a society that girls are naturally hair-free all the time, that we don't get hairy monkey legs in the winter, that we never grow hair on the upper lip like a moustache, that perfectly shaped brows didn't cost you a trip to the aesthetician.

Why are we so disgusted with our own bodies? If even leg hair is taboo what about everything else that goes on inside of us? For girls to think of themselves as filthy and then to not talk openly about it is to make us vulnerable to the corporations that tell us that girls are hairy, bloody, sweaty, smelly, oily, sticky, etc. We're ugly and offensive and we need to censor everything natural about our bodies by buying their products. You need Kleenex because anything that comes out of your nose is disease-ridden and needs to be immediately buried in the trash (Your snot is not any more full of disease than you are. How quickly we've forgotten that hankerchiefs have been safely used for centuries!). You need disposable pads and tampons for the same reason. You need to rub paste on your underarms because the smell of your natural body will offend everyone in the vicinity, when in reality a clean, healthy vegetarian diet will cleanse your insides of all the toxins that make you stink in the first place.

I know a girl who washes her hair multiple times a day because she doesn't like the feeling of oily hair, when in fact her hair is probably producing more oils in reponse to its being so frequently assaulted with shampoo! Hair doesn't need to be washed more than once every one or two days. In addition to being counter-effective to our health, these disposable personal hygiene methods are horrendous for the environment.

Don't Ask Don't Tell shouldn't apply to our bodies. We need to first acknowledge that our bodies will behave in certain ways, that instead of being afraid of the things that comes out of it we should instead try to understand what our bodies are telling us about our health. We will take better care of our bodies when we stop thinking of them as hormonal filthbags that need to be constantly sterilized and sanitized.

We are girls, and we must learn to love our bodies. When will the Revolution come?

I don't know why Chinese restaurants think they can serve shit to people and get away with it. I feel sick and clogged up with grease and MSG after eating at just about any Chinese place. Western places aren't a whole lot better.

I'm not completely vegan yet. I mostly cheat when I'm out with friends, but I'm vegan maybe 6 days out of the week.  My diet is clean enough so that an onslaught of grease and fat really hits my system hard. I should basically stop eating out altogether.

But somehow I insist on paying for unhealthy food, because it's what people gather around. Food is such an important social activity. How can I tell my grandparents I don't want to dim sum with them anymore? How can I refuse to eat cake when the party is for KitKat's birthday? If you don't eat what everyone else is eating, you don't belong.

My tummy is disappointed in me. Time to sleep it off : (