FAMOUS LAST WORDS

Recently, I bought myself a subscription to the Dropout channel on Youtube, because Dimension 20 and Make Some Noise were making up so much of my recommended clips on TikTok and Instagram. I suppose that was also why I was recommended the Last Meals episode that Brennan Lee Mulligan was on.

It was such a good episode. As it is, I love food so much and would love to have a pretend last meal for myself sometime, so I love the concept of Last Meals. I think one afternoon, when I have nothing to do (it will probably just be tomorrow on the bus to school or something), I'm gonna write out all the foods I'd want at my last meal, and there will be so many courses and cuisines. 

Brennan, as well as his Dropout co-star Zac Oyama, are two of whom I perceive to be the wholesomest men on Earth that I truly admire, so obviously this episode of Last Meals was just more of the same. Brennan talks about when he fell in love with his wife Izzy, and one of the courses was something that his wife would make, he talks about their child and his nerdy side, he talks about community and socialist ideas, the way he always does, and it was just an hour ish well spent, and I enjoyed it greatly. 

Speaking of my ideal man, I've been really thinking about men and my dating life, as I am inclined to do. I think I teeter-totter between thinking men are genuinely not good enough to date as opposed to myself being avoidant and having daddy issues, and therefore refusing to settle down. I do think most of the time it is the former that feels the most valid and real to me.

I think sometimes I feel like I'm at an impasse because I don't tend to find leftist men attractive, and the pool of leftist men in Nanaimo is a very tiny one to pick from in the first place. As I'm generally a reflective person, I've tried to really dissect my criteria and sit with it, and I honestly don't think anything can budge.

For one, yes I acknowledge it's superficial for me to only date men I think are attractive, but it would also be hypocritical if any man who wants to date me didn't admit to their own superficiality. I know they know I know I'm pretty. I have always been a regulation hottie, I did a tiny bit of modelling in Singapore, and like, yeah I was blessed with good genes, right? For one thing, I don't want to settle with a man whom I'm not attracted to, because I don't want a man to benefit or get more out of the relationship than I do. Like, let's be for real, I'm smart, I'm funny, I cook and clean, maybe due to having been an elder sister or just being a Type A person, I'm used to planning and being nurturing and doing emotional labour, and you're telling me I may also have to settle with dating a man I'm not even attracted to? Why? What do I get out of the relationship? No, thank you.

Beyond that, too, I like people for the same reason everyone likes other people and makes friends with them: they recognize parts of themselves in others that they enjoy and appreciate. If I find myself attractive (which I very much do, as you very well know), of course I'm going to be drawn to other men whom I think are attractive. But here's the thing, right, as much as I was blessed with good genes, and as much of a leftist as I am, I also know what works for me. I wear what I like, I go for regular hair appointments (by regular I mean once or twice a year), I wear contact lenses, I take supplements so I function optimally for my body, I love my skincare regime and stick to it regularly. And then you have the majority of men who don't even look like they're trying. Like, you want to date me, and you don't acknowledge that the first reason you want to do so, is because I have been conditioned by the patriarchy to put a lot of effort into the upkeep of my appearance, yet you don't look like you're doing the same? If you can recognize that you like me and are drawn to me because I wear fun clothes and am feeling myself, perhaps you could also embody those behaviours so women can be drawn to you.

I don't know, I think the meme that I'm brought to right now is just, what do you bring to the table? I'm bringing the entire table, what can you bring, babes???? Sometimes I'm sad that I have not found a lifelong partner, but sometimes, like now, I think I really am more comfortable and confident in myself and in what I want, that I do not want to ever settle for less than what I deserve and desire.

And now, to try and negate (impossible!) all that talk of men, I will talk about some new women friends I've made in the past couple of weeks. One of my newest friends is Teju. On our first hangout, we went into Windowseat Books (a really great independent local bookstore in downtown Nanaimo - they supported the Palestine Literature Festival that happened last month), Teju saw me looking through a BC-based baking book, Thyme For Dessert, and when I put it down and walked around the store, she bought the pretty hefty book for me. What a lovely gesture for our first meeting!

Last week, I met Teju again, and this time with new friends Nilou and Megan. We had dinner at Black Rabbit and Nilou was so funny I laughed till I cried. Mind you, that was their first impression of me! Whenever I spend time with women like that, which tends to be more and more often as I try to be more intentional as to how I'm spending my time, I really see less and less value in the company that a man can provide.

On Friday, I met another new friend for the first time. Her name is Stephanie and she's from Montana in the US. While talking about Montana, she said that Yellowstone was filmed there, and because she was from a small town, she heard that whenever the Yellowstone crew would order sandwiches or catering from the local eateries, they would not tip. This appalled me because do you know how big Yellowstone (the TV show) is???? The first episode alone had three helicopter scenes! I've now made up my mind not to watch it.

Anyway, Stephanie asked me if I wanted to see a ballet with Indigenous dancers that night, so I said yes. Before we went in to the theatre, we found out we'd both seen the episode of Last Meals with Brennan, and the episode had just dropped the day before, so I knew instantly that she probably had similar values as I do, to be recommended the same kind of media content. The ballet was called Pisuwin, and it was put on by the Atlantic Ballet Company in Canada. The producer came out, and as he was Indigenous, he spoke about how his mother had said, she recalled once upon a time, when people like them weren't allowed in spaces like the theatre. The performance itself was extremely moving, but I kept thinking about his words, how he was the first of his bloodline to be involved in the ballet, and how I was pretty much the first of my bloodline to watch a ballet with Indigenous dancers.

Oftentimes, the world is dark and dreary, but the women around me do such warm things, like buy me books or take me to the ballet, knowing how broke I still am as an international student. I am grateful, grateful, grateful, to be alive yet.

IN THIS ESSAY, I WILL...

So, I don't know, I just felt like rambling in long-form again and that Instagram wasn't gonna give me enough space so I'm back here. Are we back?? We're so back?? This is a joke, I'm just joking. Last weekend, I went on another very enjoyable date, with a completely different person. This time, this man took me to see the World Series baseball game at a bar, which I did not care about because I generally do not care about sports, but it was the finals (or whatever the final game is called), between the Toronto Blue Jays and the LA Dodgers.

There hadn't been a Canadian team to make it so close to winning in ages, so pretty much all of average Canada was watching it and rooting for the Blue Jays. I didn't understand any of it, I had to keep asking what inning it was at, where in the inning we were at, etc, but he explained it gently, and also in between bites of my quesadilla and me pretending to be interested, he would kiss me and it was enjoyable, so I let him be.

This man works in a science lab, doing cancer research, which is fascinating, and I've always loved dating people who work in the scientific field, because I guess I'm more philosophical and arts-inclined. Whenever I meet someone who works in a field I know nothing about, I get to learn more and it's more interesting to me. He says he'll try to take me to his lab one day on a weekend so I get to see the work he does, and thus I will not be able to say where he works, because he might get into trouble. Do you think it's hilarious how many workplaces I've been sneaked into just by dating men in different careers? I think it's hilarious. One time I got sneaked into a nurses' lounge because my date was a doctor on night shift. The number of people I could get fired is astounding, tbh.

This week, by virtue of being chronically online and following the right people (ie. all the best people) online, I was treated to some major positive and encouraging news re: the US, which was so needed because the US is a miserably failing empire that's crumbling in on itself (this week they cut SNAP benefits?? what in actual fuck???) but again! This week there was massive hopeful news!

Zohran Mamdani became the mayor of New York City, where the mayoral race hit two million votes for the first time since 1969. This happened despite Cuomo being backed by hugely influential figures (but all of whom are berserk) and big money, making Mamdani's win even more historic. Gun safety won in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, became the first female governor of Virginia. In Cincinnati, JD Vance's half-brother, Cory Bowman, suffered a resounding loss to the Democrats. Every county in Virginia shifted blue. Ghazala Hashmi is Virginia's lieutenant governor, and the first Muslim woman elected to statewide office in US history. Maine (!!!) killed voter restriction and supported gun restriction. Mary Sheffield is the first woman mayor in Detroit and she's a Black woman, and Johnny DuPree, a Black Democrat is elected to Mississippi Senate, flipping it from Republican.

All of that is of course very superficial and surface-level news, Democrats aren't even quite the progressives they think they are, and are fully capable of being incompetent and reprehensible, and we have to wait and see what all the aforementioned candidates do with their platforms, etc, but I think it bears celebrating some significance that Americans are fed up (to put it mildly) with the current administration, and they want change. 

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Something else that Instagram has seen, but I haven't quite rambled about over here just yet, is my growing disdain for Taylor Swift. Buckle up, because away we go (oh also, another thing that my date did last weekend was he listened to me rant all about Taylor Swift, and then he asked to watch one of the TikTok academics that I had been raving about as one of my sources, too). I have consumed so much TikTok about Taylor and particularly about her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, since October 3, and I believe I have become disillusioned (yes, I know most of you are like, “fucking finally???”). I could curate a playlist of all the TikTok videos that have analyzed it in much more comprehensive and eloquent ways than I do here, so if you'd like the playlist, let me know and I'll share it with you.

So, firstly, she released at least ten different variants of the Showgirl album, to encourage diehard Swifties to consume and purchase more units of her product. She also then released extremely shoddy, embarrassing voice memos of herself recording the album with her producers Martin and Shellback, and she sold these (mind you, she never needs another dime in her life and could have released them for free). Some of the songs on the album have been deemed problematic, and whilst the TikTok videos have talked about them at length, I will only mention the ones that I feel surely about. Olivia Rodrigo was pressured to share credits and royalties for her song Deja Vu, because it apparently was inspired by Taylor, and you can tell it wasn't a pleasant situation because Olivia used to be a very big and expressive Swiftie, but she's gone quiet since the credits (and royalties) thing happened. On the other hand, Swift's songs, Actually Romantic sounds exactly like Where Is My Mind by Pixies, and Wood absolutely samples The Jackson 5. Neither of those mention the original song credits on her album.

Still song-related, the track Actually Romantic also disses Charli XCX and calls her out for having a coke addiction problem, which is apparently in retaliation to Charli's song, Sympathy is a Knife. I've seen this analyzed threefold. One, Charli herself lives in her truth of using coke, and it's all over her own album, Brat. You can't embarrass someone who owns their truth. Two, it's ridiculous that Taylor is making an actual diss track about Charli, who only just got her deserved limelight with Brat after many years of not quite making it big big. Taylor is a billionaire, and she's punching down at another woman artist who's finally getting her flowers? Get the fuck out of here. Three, Sympathy is a Knife is not even a diss track about Taylor, it's about Charli's own insecurities, which she's being vulnerable about. Ms Ma’am Taylor Swift, for someone who claims to be our English teacher, you need your degree checked. Oh that's right, she doesn't have a real one.

Then there's the song Cancelled. In it, she sings “good thing I like my friends cancelled”, and she honestly has been sticking around people who have been involved in scandals, or basically the MAGA crowd, and definite Trump supporters. Those people don't hold themselves accountable, and therefore nor does Swift for herself. Also, there is The Fate of Ophelia. In the lead-up to the album launch, Swift said on the podcast that she was teaching Kelce about Shakespeare, because it's like an inside joke that he's a jock who doesn't get her references and all, right. Well, her lyrics in The Fate of Ophelia have been dissected by my current favourite TikToker (@kaicfox), who is an actual Shakespearean academic. Ophelia was written by Shakespeare to symbolize how women had absolutely zero agency except for what the men in their lives decided for them. It's insinuated (in Shakespeare's drama, Hamlet) that Ophelia kills herself because she recognizes this, after the rebukes by her father, her brother, and in conversations with Hamlet. Her act of suicide can be interpreted as possibly her one real act of agency. Swift then sings about being saved by a man (obviously Kelce), and therefore escaping “the fate of Ophelia”, which is exactly not what the character was about. And it would be one thing if Swift herself had said, oh I like the name Ophelia, I wanted to take my own creative liberties with it and write a romance, but no, she heavily suggested that she understood the play and the character, and was then trying to be smart about it in her song, which it wasn't.

Then, when she got wind that her album was being disliked on TikTok, she appeared on a Zane Lowe (for Apple Music) interview, and said “the rule of show business is if it's the first week of my album release and if you're saying either my name or my album title, you're helping,” which, what???? She'd never struck us (the Swifties, I mean) as being this person who's just cold and calculative and only in it for the business? All I can say is, yuckkkkkkkkkk.

In the past month, even Taylor's longtime friend, Hayley Williams, performed a song from her new album on a late night talk show, and the track she performed was about racism in the US. Billie Eilish donated $11.5 million, and when Taylor did a late night appearance, she described Kelce's job (playing football) as putting his life on the line, whilst there are literal genocides happening in the world, at this moment. It's just now striking me as god-awful how asinine she is, because she's a billionaire (meaning she obviously has a level of success backed by legions of fans), and how she will still say “people hate me because it's cool and popular to hate me.” No, we don't? People hate you because we live in a society with massive and growing wealth divides and you're a billionaire who refuses to redistribute your wealth or use your platform for good. Taylor Swift is tone deaf and out of touch with reality.

I've done a lot in support of Taylor Swift, you know. I don't want to hate her. I loved her earlier songs, I've gone to three of her concerts (one 1989 and two Eras Tour shows), but I honestly cannot in good conscience ever stomach any more of this woman.

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Recently, I've been thinking a lot about the Jonathan Safran Foer quote: You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness. I've liked it for a long time, and I wonder if I've actually mentioned it here before, though I can't be fucked to look for it. I think I quite embody the quote, in a way that I allow myself to be very sad and vulnerable, but I also have extremely happy and meaningful moments, and I think they're all real and authentic. However, I think the society I live in, mostly do not.

I think a lot of people around me are comfortable and also very scared of ever bursting the bubble wrap that surrounds them. I think they're scared of having uncomfortable conversations, and they're always chasing the next high, and nothing about their lives seems to be as particularly important nor meaningful nor authentic. Of course, I understand and am not calling out people who may not go to therapy because they're financially strapped, or I'm not even talking about people who do go to therapy but keep it on the down low. No, I know who I mean, and it's many, many people, who would never ever face up to the reality of their lives (therapy or not), because then your entire worldview might come crashing down on you.

It's the same people who'll say, yeah, there's racism and colonialism and imperialism, and they think that just saying it and saying it all happened in the past, and that they would never engage in such a thing, makes it all okay, makes the past all go away. Babe, every single thing that's happened in history has led us to this moment, to this eternal rat race that I have to run to prove my worth while you coast through life, and you think it's enough for you to say “it's over now”? No, babe, I need more anti-racism, I need you to help me dismantle the structures that have been built by undeserving old rich/white men, because I do not want the next generations to have to go through the same goddamn struggles that I did and am still going through. And you know, I say babe, and I don't know if you (whoever you are that's reading this) will think I mean this personally, but I don't. If you feel called out, trust me, it's only because it is a majority of you in this society who do these same things. You are all part of a club, and you need to let the rest of us in.

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It's the beginning of my fifth winter in Canada, or basically the fifth winter in my life. I think, by virtue of it being my fifth winter, I've kinda become more accustomed to the ups and downs, and the highs and lulls of seasonal life (because Singapore was a tropical country year-round). I think my first two, three years here were marked by big changes, and big emotional upheavals and to my regulatory systems. I mean, of course the world is seeing more and more unprecedented times and that affects me, but overall, I think I've done a pretty alright job of creating a life for myself here. 

There've been so many monumental changes that you couldn't understand unless you were also a migrant from Singapore to Canada. For example, Singapore isn't a union-inclined society at all, there isn't talk of unions nor collective agreements, nor worker rights and things like that. When I came over and I started working for the students' union, a lot of the language was utterly new to me, I had to reshape my brain and language and understand the inner workings of work culture here, and I think I did it pretty well. I think I also assimilated to “Canadian” culture pretty well, I understand how people do things here and I absorb and rehash the little Canadian utterances, the “ehs” and “shooting the shit”, yet I don't think I ever do it in a way to increase my proximity to Whiteness. Today Sydney said “Sarah Mei can’t be pocketed” because we were talking about my meeting with the interim VIU president tomorrow, and I take that to heart as a high compliment. Sarah Mei cannot be pocketed???? Excuse you, in a world where everything can be bought for a price, I think I can be proud of myself for not being cowed by wanting to stay within party lines or impress the right people and things like that. Fuck that, I live by my morals and I think that is what will keep me happy and my life meaningful. It reminds me of maybe a decade ago, I and my best friend at the time, Han, we said something like we would rather be good people, and not nice people, and I believe I still live by the same maxim. 

Perhaps I should get myself a cake to celebrate my fifth winter in Canada/life. I think I shall.

A WEEKEND IN THE LIFE

I’ve had, what is for me, an ideal weekend. Now, I say that with the caveat, because of course I know everyone’s ideals are different and when you read about my weekend, you could be like, ew I wouldn’t want that, but I wanted it, I highly enjoyed and appreciated it, and it was my ideal weekend, and so I wanted to pen it down, just because not all weekends are ideal for me, not every hour and every day in a row.

I had therapy on Friday morning, where I got to rant about the horror that is living in this world in the body that I inhabit, and then I had an appointment with my nurse practitioner. My NP actually had some concerning news for me, that I didn’t even expect, so we’re tweaking my medication, and then I’ll have to get blood work done again in a couple of weeks to see if it’s helped. The news from my NP wasn’t ideal, but I’ve only started regularly going for medical checkups when I got to Canada, and I really like the consistency of getting to know my body, and helping it along in the course of my life. It’s one of the virtuous cycles that happen to help my brain and body understand that I care enough to take steps to care for them, which then I think just keeps getting me to feel better, overall.

Then I met Sara for lunch, and honestly, she reminds me of my younger sister Lyssa and how they approach life. One time, Lyssa threw an egg onto our family’s car because she was beefing with our mom, leading Mom to think for the longest time that one of our neighbours was hate-criming our family. It’s very funny and amuses me how they’re like “if you’re gonna create problems for me, I’ll do it right back to you,” whereas in my head, everybody’s problems are my problems and I stress out over it all, when I literally try to be as unproblematic as I can be. Anyway, I obviously admire Sara very much in her demeanour and her strength and resilience, so I love spending time with people who inspire me.

Post-lunch, I took the ferry to Vancouver because I’d had a dumpster fire of a week, professionally, so I wanted a respite from the island. I met a man whom I’d matched with on Bumble, but we hadn’t quite had the longest of conversations so, it was all a very eye-opening experience. He picked me up from Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal, which, for my Singaporean friends and family, is one of the terminals on the mainland that receives ferries from Nanaimo. We got to his place, and I was immediately in awe because the first place it reminded me of was The Vault, my favourite cafe in Nanaimo. His apartment is a loftish type thing, with high ceilings and windows and the bedroom overlooking the living area. One of the walls was plastered in art, and not like the snobbyish hoity-toity kinda art, but just very eclectic and cool and things I would think are important and I would like, so it was basically The Vault, right. I posted photos, and several people also thought it was either The Vault with renovations or that it very much resembled The Vault.

So there I was, in amazement that someone’s living situation was basically like my favourite place in all of Nanaimo, somewhere I feel safe and gravitate to and visit pretty much once a week at least. We chatted to get to know each other, and then he made dinner for us. It was somewhat Japanese in part, he made agedashi tofu and eggplant, and there was also rice and God knows what, all made while I’d picked up his copy of The Fellowship of the Ring and started reading it. Dinner was tasty, and also very well-presented, I wanted to take a photo but it was also the first time I was having dinner with this person, so I didn’t.

That “date” was about 36 hours long, from when I arrived in Vancouver on Friday evening to when I left him on Sunday morning. In between, he made breakfast for me, and then took me to hotpot because I’d said I was definitely in the mood for hotpot in the chillier fall weather. He made the reservation for hotpot, and whilst we were there, I also noticed that everything he cooked, he would give me the first serving before serving himself the same thing. It was my first time at Liuyishou in Vancouver, and I would deffo recommend it! Hotpot is hotpot is hotpot, but some soup bases are simply not worth going for, so Liuyishou has good options, and attentive servers too.

Throughout that 36-hour period, we talked about a lot of things, as you can when you’re spending every waking hour in the same living space, and it was very comfortable, very easy conversation, very enjoyable. I also highly enjoyed being intimate with him. If you do not know me, you should know that I’m very physically affectionate, I love hugs and tracing shapes on someone’s skin, and holding hands, and using the back of my palm to gently rub someone’s cheeks, etc etc. Cuffing season is upon us, so it was definitely nice to do all those things with someone whose skin temperature felt good on mine.

On Sunday morning, I left early to get my new tattoo done. When you do see it, if you are my family you might shake your head and be more disappointed with me, but I am unreasonably happy about this one. It says “I’m sure you can’t find the 4th object” and it’s just the caption at the top of the game ads that play between Facebook or Instagram posts. You know when there are literally only three items in the image, but then to clickbait you they say “I’m sure you can’t find the 4th object.” Well, it’s now done on my right forearm, and I’m happy with it for multiple reasons. My first two tattoos, I wanted them to have so much meaning and I thought about them for quite some whiles, but eventually because they’re both on my back, I don’t even see them nor remember they exist. I wanted one that was more prominent because I think I’ve reached the stage where, if you’ve already got a tattoo, what the heck is another one? The other thing that makes me happy is I’m actually pretty glad it’s an obscure dank meme that no one gets, it strikes me as pretty hilarious. The tattoo artist and I also had a good chat and he filmed some amusing content for his page after we were done.

Once the tattoo was done, I took the bus to Alessia’s place and got to crunch some auburn autumn leaves in my Marceline boots, so that also added to the ideal nature of the weekend. Alessia and I got ready then went to have KBBQ at Kook, which I really enjoyed again! Piping hot rice-heavy Asian food in the fall? Sign me up again and again and again. Alessia was looking very pretty and hot yesterday, and honestly I don’t understand how women like us get fumbled all the time, except I do know this world is stacked against turning out competent and exceptional men, so I guess I do understand, it’s just hard to accept.

Alessia and I have come such a long way from our first summer together four years ago. I truly cherish my friendship with her. Yes we made excellent roommates, and we do fun things together and immerse ourselves in girlhood, shriek-about-DMs-from-men type beat. But part of what makes our girlhood so strong is I think we’ve navigated some heavy issues, and I recently watched a Tiktok of a woman saying how men’s “friendships” could never (in general, of course, by and large).

About two years ago, Alessia and I had a conversation about some things that may always present themselves as maybe a little wrench in the clockwork of our friendship. I’ve told Alessia, that despite the surface agreements about cops and the policing system being a complete farce and harmful, and about the patriarchy and how men will never be able to reach the general standards of women because they’re just not even incentivised to do so, etc, despite many of our general consensus holding true for each other, based on the radical, politically-conscious and politically-involved person I am, I could never and may never feel 100% safe around her, and she knows that and tells me it’s valid. Like, we come from vastly different worlds, right, and even though she does tend to share her privilege with me, her priorities and mine tend to differ quite widely, and sometimes you could even say they’re in contention to each other’s interests. However, we’ve done the hard thing of talking about the uncomfortable, and will continue to do so, and I think that’s why it’s so easy for me to also treasure my fun times with her, because we’re not ignoring the obvious but folding it into our interactions with each other and our worlds.

It was an unexpectedly sunny Sunday yesterday, so we got ourselves Earnest Ice Cream, but then it got cold and windy because we were by the waterfront, so the vibes were completely off, but eventually we still laughed through it and I at least enjoyed the discomfort of it all. We saw an improv comedy show on Main Street, had a slice of pizza before coming home, and she drove me back to Horseshoe Bay this morning.

Overall, I literally could not and would not have changed a thing about my weekend (tl;dr good Asian food, warm and deep conversation, comedy and laughter, someone I love and am familiar with, a new tattoo, the crunch of fall leaves, people’s consideration of me and for me), and I’m immensely grateful for it.

MUSCLE MEMORY

So about two weeks ago, I turned 35 years old (!!! what the heck), on May 11.

My birthday was on a Sunday, but on the Monday right after, my team and I were going to leave for Senegal for our research project, so I planned to celebrate it one day earlier. When I woke up on the 10th, Alessia came into my room and told me I had to wake up. I got a little flustered as I'd already set an alarm so we could get to my birthday high tea in Victoria on time, and she was in my room even earlier than that.

Alessia used my phone to film me, and told me to watch a nine-minute clip on her own phone. She introduced it, and she'd collected birthday wishes and messages from some of my very favourite people in all the world. When it got to my family members in Singapore exclaiming "happy birthday!" altogether, I literally started bawling and had to pause watching the video. It was my fourth birthday away from my family, and I've missed four of my birthday celebrations, as well as all of theirs.

It contained the loveliest thoughts and expressions from my inherent family in Singapore, and my found family in Canada. There were heartfelt notions from people who don't usually show outwardly affection, there were funny inside jokes from my cousins who visited me in Vancouver last summer, I had new and old friends in Canada saying the sweetest things about and for me. You probably know I am a person of words, so I appreciate words, all the time.

Once we'd gotten ready, Clio picked us up in her car and we started our road trip to Victoria. We started singing along to some old school songs, and it made me think of when Clio and I were in our first class together last semester. I loved when Clio would answer Michael's questions, because she has such an ethereal voice, it always calmed me, so it was so lovely to have her driving and singing next to me, as we were on the way to celebrate my birthday.

We eventually got to Butchart Gardens in Victoria. It was my first time there, and the start of May is a great time for a visit. It's got all sorts of bright, colourful, interesting flowers at the prime of their bloom. We got seated at our table in The Dining Room for high tea. It was a busy weekend, with all the families celebrating Mothers' Day (as happens during my birthday every year), but our server was extremely attentive and detailed. I really appreciated her making us all feel settled and taken care of, even with a couple of different dietary preferences.

After we'd finished our tea, we took a jaunt around the gardens. Sydney started making up her own names for all the plants, and each one had some sort of euphemistic meaning to them. My friends being on generally the same wavelength as I am, they went and sized up bushes, feeling how sturdy they were, etc. Some of my friends couldn't make it, because it was the start of summer and people had begun leaving for vacations, etc, but for all the ones who were there, I was so thoroughly happy with how everyone got along.

We talked about books, about "reverse racist" jokes, vampires, copulating dragons, leftist men, all the things I love to think and talk about. They know that I'm manifesting meeting the partner of my dreams, so at three different times, three of my friends proposed to me, and I accepted all three proposals! At the end of the day, I asked to have ice cream, so we got some at Parachute Ice Cream before leaving Victoria. It was the perfect birthday celebration of my dreams.

Thank you to everyone who was involved in it (by sending in a video message to Alessia), thank you especially of course to the bestie Alessia for putting in the time and effort in compiling the clips, thank you to the people who went to Victoria with me, thank you to all the messages over any medium, and thank you for your kind thoughts, always!

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On the way over to Senegal, and whilst I was adjusting to the jet lag here, I started and finished reading The Original Daughter by Jemimah Wei (she goes by Jemma, though). It's an intriguing story about sisterhood and betrayal between sisters, the anger that ensues, the fracture of family ties. 

I think the story is written compellingly that keeps you reading but what really draws me to it, is it's written and set in Singapore, where both Jemma and I are clearly from. To me, there is the familiar charm of a background I know as part of my DNA, it contains languages I've been able to code-switch in all of my life (and she also uses sayang, my very favourite word among all the words I know). She describes HDB blocks and void decks the way so many books we've read have set their stories against the backdrops of SoHo, Greenwich, NoLiTa in NYC, or other major global cities. It's fun to see it happen for Singapore. 

I'd been following Jemma's writing and saw her conducting research for how different Chinese dialects would refer to their maternal versus paternal grandparents, etc, and it's lovely to see her work, her baby, completed. I think it's quite an impressive debut novel, and already look forward to her next.

*

We got to St Louis, Senegal, about eleven/twelve days ago. The journey was like no other I'd been through. We first drove to Victoria's airport from Nanaimo, flew from Vic to Calgary, Calgary to New York, from New York to Dakar, and finally, drove from Dakar's airport, five hours to St Louis. By the time we got here, it felt like we had gone through four levels of hell. It was just the longest trip and the weirdest time changes. 

Three days in, I experienced the jet lag version of fool’s spring. I'd felt it before when I went home to Singapore, and it happened again. It's when, three days into a time zone change, you wake up, stay awake and go to sleep at the proper time in the destination country and you think the jet lag has abated. Then somehow, the next day it gets fucked again by your inability to shake off a nap or to sleep too early, and your body is basically doing a gotcha.

We've been here twelve days and despite all the stories we'd heard back while we were in Canada, and all the research we'd done, Senegal hasn’t been as hot as we expected. I mean, it's obviously warm compared to Canada, but it hasn't been unbearably scorching and it's been more like when the PNW is easing into its summer. The temperatures have been ranging from 25-30 degrees Celsius, which isn't even as bad as Singapore. Also, Singapore is more humid than it is here, so it hasn't felt as sticky as it would be in Singapore.

I wonder if it's subconscious racism, that people in the Western world don't want to travel to an underprivileged, exploited continent like Africa, so the perception is that it's blazing hot, and desert-like, with no reprieve. As far as I remember, I would not be able to stay out in the sun in Singapore without soaking through my clothes in sweat, and that doesn't happen here, so it's much less uncomfortable. However, no one refrains from traveling to Singapore based on its sweltering, sweaty weather, because we're known for our "modern buildings" and such. Just imperialism and capitalism doing their thing, as always.

Speaking of exploitation and lack of privilege, it's been heartbreaking to see. The sights here bear such a stark resemblance to articles I've seen of bombed sites in Gaza. The buildings have gaping holes in places, there are piles of rubble everywhere, sanitation issues abound, St Louis faces a scarcity of clean water, no proper sewage and treatment systems. These all still exist here pervasively a hundred, two hundred years after the colonization and pillage of Africa, and any progress/development is sluggish, if it is at all happening. And now, at the exact moment I type this, the plunder is happening in places such as Gaza.

Sometimes I watch people immersed in their vacations in Europe, enjoying the spoils of everything those countries have extracted from places like Africa, with all the present-day tourism still contributing to it and injecting more into their economies, whilst African and other exploited nations are still lagging far behind. It’s disheartening, and I don't know what to do or say, and it's not like I don't want to visit Europe and see their charming sites and lives. It's not like I didn't just travel to New York, one of the most capitalist and exploitative places in all the world. All this to say, the depression in me is kept exactly at bay with the precise dose of escitalopram I'm prescribed, and I'm trying my best to balance everything I know and feel, with what I can do for this Earth. 

*
The first day we went to the university (L'Université Gaston Berger) was last Friday. Senegal is predominantly Muslim and in Islam, Friday is the day for men to congregate for their Dhuhr prayers. It's sort of Islam's most revered day, so every Friday, students are wearing their Friday best. They're decked out in colourful and beautiful clothes, some in bold prints, something I have not seen at VIU in my years there. When Canadians/Vancouverites wear colour in summer, school’s not in regular session, and when I’m in school in fall/winter, most Vancouver fashion is known to be black/white/monochrome. I really appreciated the variety of African/Senegalese fashion. 

They've thrown us into university-level political studies classes with Senegalese students, conducted in French, which is crazy, if you ask me. I've never been educated in French as a linguistic medium, and here I am, learning about the colonization of Africa and democratic theories in the language??? Savage. I hadn't felt so stupid in a hot minute. However, if we continue attending classes and being exposed to the language over the next two months, I do think it will help us acclimatize, though I would also appreciate if y'all keep sending me more of your favourite French media (movies/songs/podcasts) to consume.

In our research project, we will be conducting interviews with climate refugees, who have been displaced and relocated to refugee camps, because their homes were destroyed due to coastal erosion. It's quite a complicated and sensitive issue conducting these interviews, because Senegal was a French colony, so the mode of communication in schools and "professional" settings is French. However, in recent decades, Senegalese people have wanted to reintegrate the original and native language of Wolof into their lives and shed their French colonial baggage. 

All this to say, when we go to school and when we live at home with our Senegalese hosts, we've been translating between English, French, and Wolof. So.... If you thought trying to broach the touchy topic of people losing the literal roof over their heads and their livelihoods was tough, we now have to do it threefold. You can't see my face but imagine me giving a shaky grin and a thumbs up sign. 

However, I do think I have a slight advantage on this end. Having picked up Mandarin whilst I was growing up Malay (due to Mandarin being the ubiquitous language in Singapore, as well as my mother remarrying a Chinese man, making half my family nucleus half-Chinese), the linguistics part of my brain has always been stronger. I learned to code-switch between three languages, and from the age of primary school, when I learned a word, I would make sure I knew it in English, Malay, and Mandarin. Now, I have to replicate the exercise, but with French and Wolof. I am, obviously, three decades older than when I first had to do this, so I may not be as quick, but it isn't a practice I am wholly unfamiliar with.

*

I would say acclimatizing to Senegal has had its culture shocks for us, though perhaps more so for my Canadian counterparts than for myself (although they don't have the added religious PTSD). The Muslim prayer calls are blared over loudspeakers, and so they are loud when we are asleep, and secondly, there are mosques everywhere, and there is no escaping them. Having been raised Muslim, I'm aware of the intended benefits of Muslim prayer. Five times a day, you have to take ablution, so you keep yourself clean. For able-bodied people, there is the physical act of standing and bowing, so the entire routine integrates hygiene, movement, flexibility, and also meditation, taking you out of the stream of life and reminding you to be present in your moment. However, we have all felt the obnoxiousness of the prayer calls here, and it makes me think of commuters who play music or have phone calls on speaker mode on the bus. It’s so overwhelming and loud, and people with stimulus issues are forced to feel overwhelmed. It's kind of a contradiction, no? If a god were truly with you all the time, there is simply no need to shove it down people's throats (or ears in this case) so often, so forcefully, and so intensely. 

Another cultural difference has been in the gender dynamics. Twice, over two different meals, we had conversations with our Senegalese hosts, who are Fadil, Bassirou and Mame. One of the men is of the opinion that there can be no real friendship between men and women, which is firstly obviously unhealthy gendered standards, and secondly, is extremely heteronormative. However, our woman host, Mame, does not subscribe to similar notions, and she said she would not marry a Muslim man who wants to marry more than one woman, despite it being the cultural norm in Senegal. It's heartening to know that there are feminists here who are trying to break out of the cycle, and all power to people like Mame!

Speaking of gender, thanks to being on feminist Tiktok and/or Instagram, I have discovered the aqua tofana tattoo, and that is my next planned tattoo. Aqua tofana was a colourless, undetectable poison that women used to give their husbands when said husbands were being absolute abusive/useless shits, and so present-day women have started/revived a trend of getting tattoos of small vials, as symbols that we can exist without men, and actually, we're also usually better off without them.

Through the week, we have been treated to a few authentic Senegalese foods, some at the university campus, and one meal cooked by Mame. We had yassa au poulet on campus, I had a fataya for breakfast once, and today Mame made us thieboudienne. All three were stunning dishes, and I definitely want to try to recreate any and all of them, when I'm back in Canada, and also for my family in Singapore. Food makes me so happy, seriously, sometimes when I want to give up on life, I think, no, there is so much more delicious food I haven't even tried, how could I deprive myself and my tastebuds of all the different permutations and combinations of flavours that life has to offer me????

*

A couple of nights ago, I attended VIU's Senate meeting online. It was a spicy session because program cuts were on the table, given the institution's financial failings. Sometimes I really don't understand how the university is still standing, there are obviously nitwits abound, who cannot even create a proper agenda package (whether due to malice nor incompetence, we still do not know, but when it involves people's livelihoods, does it even matter).

I was honestly almost at my wits' end this week. I had to stay up from 11PM to 2AM Senegal time to sit in on a 4PM Senate meeting, Nanaimo time, and sometimes it felt like they didn't have two functional braincells to rub together in the boardroom (although that's not true, because some of the people in that room, I do respect). At 1AM Senegal time, I kept telling myself to breathe deep breaths, and think of Art, and Jocelyne, and Kaia, and Warren, and Alessia, and Sara, and Sarah Lovegrove, and all the Canadian people with sense, and sensability, and who give me the patience to deal with such rubbish.

The pesky people I work with who don't have spines, I have as much derision for them as I do for the Senegalese mosquitoes that are giving me grief here. 

*
I've been trying to use less of Meta products (because the company is owned by a fascist), so I’m on Mastodon now, and I've also been importing my Instagram posts over to Pixelfed (both Mastodon and Pixelfed are open-source apps, I believe). It's a little challenging, because y'all know I'm always, always rambling. I'm never not rambling. So much of my ramblings have been on Instastories and I think I've built a great community for myself there. I post and consume posts about mental health, anti-racist, anti-fascist, pro-community causes, etc. However, it's definitely self-defeating if these posts are hosted on a platform that's inherently capitalist and fascist. I know this because it censors Palestine issues, and I can see it whenever I post about Palestine, and similar issues. I know people from Singapore and Canada have enjoyed and loved my candid nature, being vocal about things that affect me, or controversial things in the world that really shouldn’t be controversial. However, I keep saying I want to start a revolution and that I would be the first to strike a match to the ground, so I cannot be attached to my Instagram profile of all things, it's not even something that's tangible.

Anyways, before we came to Senegal, I’d been going to the climbing gym at least once a week for two months and there isn’t a climbing gym here (because obviously they've got other things to keep their minds on). When I get back to Nanaimo, I will have to retrain my arms to their baseline strength. Should you feel so kind and generous, you are welcome to gift me either a continued membership to the climbing gym, or French classes, so that I ace my Canadian citizenship requirements and/or am able to work with the government? Much appreciated! Bisous xxxxxx

MATILDA

Let’s see if I still remember how to do this. It’s been a hot, hot minute. I feel like I’ve kinda wasted away a year and a half of my life, sorta. When the genocide in Gaza became amplified and publicized in November of 2023, I got involved in the advocacy for it, because I know some Gazans who went to and still go to VIU. I saw my therapist and the school’s nurse practitioner and I got put on antidepressants, specifically escitalopram. Art, my therapist, wasn’t quite wholly in support of it, and his reasoning was that without the antidepressant, I took on too much for my plate of responsibilities, the drug would add a layer of bubble wrap, and I would simply add even more responsibilities for myself. However, he recognised that I was in charge of my own body and mental health, so with the nurse practitioner, I decided to start on a course of antidepressants. I think the escitalopram works somewhat for what it’s intended, I’ve been through breakups and pitfalls and setbacks and of course they all make me sad occasionally, but more and more, I’ve had the mindset of “it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things,” except somehow nothing seems to matter to me in any scheme of things now. I’m not doing my assignments and am failing? Doesn’t matter nor reflect on me as a person. I’m missing deadlines for work interviews? Doesn’t matter nor reflect on me as a person. Nothing seems to be a reflection of me as a person. I don’t know if it’s also coupled with the senioritis and the fact that, for as long as I’ve been in Canada, I’ve been a student, and once I graduate, I’ll be a big girl living the big girl life with big girl responsibilities and I’m not sure I’m equipped for it, nor do I look forward to it completely. To say that the past year was an entire waste would also be reductionist too, because even though school went by in a dumpster fiery blur, in terms of my Chairperson term on the VIUSU, we managed to make some big moves, and we finally collectively removed the previous President of VIU, under whose leadership our school kept bleeding more and more money. That was a much needed breakthrough, and the students definitely took the lead on that one. This summer, I will be spending months in Senegal doing climate mitigation research and interviewing climate refugees who have already been impacted by coastal erosion and whose livelihoods have been crushed and completed transformed. In that way, I suppose the last year really isn’t as bad as I think it is, but again, I don’t know if it’s the escitalopram, I really don’t have a grasp of reality that has gone by. I know I’m so overwhelmed by change and the stress of juggling school, work, as well as the minutiae of the changing nature of international student and work/immigration visas. I want to take my antidepressant through to when I graduate and maybe in the first year of settling into a big girl job, but heck. I am looking forward to being my full complete person and feeling the things I’m used to feeling. Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely not hating on the antidepressant and I recognise that I need it for a time, but I miss the person I used to be. I almost don’t recognise myself.

LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE

This past weekend was the BC Federation of Students’ AGM. I spent it campaigning for a year-long position as a Director-at-Large. There were four Director-at-Large positions, with eight candidates vying for them.

On Saturday evening, we each made our speech contesting our case, then spent an hour in the room for the other Locals’ delegates to approach any of us and ask questions about whatever they wanted, pertaining to our candidacy. 

We were scattered all over the room, and I was asked questions like (list not exhaustive — I literally did not stop talking for one hour): how my being in the position could help the Federation’s relations with Indigenous communities; how I could improve the BCFS’ position on environmental or sustainability issues; (because I’d been the only candidate to bring up Gaza in my speech) how I’d deal with potentially an Israeli student feeling offended by my Palestine-geared advocacy; what kind of initiatives I’d push for if I received a position. 

I fielded these questions, one after another, as best and as authentically as I could. It was exhausting, I’d never felt like I had to talk about all the values I believed in and cared for, for all of an hour. I don’t even do that at therapy, during which I’m either laughing because I get to relax and let my guard down when I’m with my therapist, or I’m crying, for similar reasons. 

Nonetheless, I felt encouraged by all the questions, I knew the room was filled with 150 or so people who only wanted to make sure that the positions were filled by someone competent and up to the job, and I knew they, like me, were doing it because they cared. It might have been only an election of university students across BC, but I honestly think it was a positive situation because we’re all mostly mature enough to know of real-world issues, but not jaded enough to engage in mudslinging like in real-world politics. My seven candidates who ran for the position and I, we’re friends, and I knew we all wanted to do our best in the interest of students. 

Today, we received the results and I had won one of the four positions. Cole and Leah cheered the loudest and gave me cheek kisses when we found out. I could finally breathe deeply and fully. I was elated but what really filled my heart was when the other Local delegates congratulated me. 

They said things like they felt a good vibe coming from me when they talked to me, that they could trust me, that they never questioned that they would vote for me, that they were proud of me — and these were people who’d just met me for the first time! It warms my heart because doing activism is obviously a kind of work that can be draining. It requires that you focus on the problems and issues that exist in society, so that you can create awareness of and hopefully help to fix them. 

Most of the time, out in public, I’d have to explain what certain -isms mean, why some things aren’t cool nor acceptable, or why we should be doing more when we have the capacity to do more. When you care about one thing, you usually care about more and more, and burnout can be so real. 

In this room, though, I didn’t have to explain myself. They knew what issues exist in the world, they only wanted to know that I cared the way they did. I didn’t have to convince them of anything, except that I will eventually do the things I said I would. My favorite times are whenever I spend time with the BCFS because these people get me, they don’t make me feel like I’m too much or I care too much. So it meant a lot to me that they believe and had such faith in me.

I know it might not be the biggest deal but I’m truly grateful to be doing such work. I’m afforded an opportunity to be representing 170,000 post-secondary students across British Columbia, to do what I love and fulfills me. It gives me hope. Thank you all for creating an environment that’s allowed me to grow so much. I’m definitely gonna do my best for you.

I HOPE THIS PAIN’S JUST PASSING THROUGH

Now I am stuck between my anger 

and the blame that I can't face 

And memories are somethin' 

even smoking weed does not replace 

And I am terrified of weather 

'cause I see you when it rains 

Doc told me to travel, but there's COVID on the planes

And I love Vermont, but it's the season of the sticks 

And I saw your mom, she forgot that I existed 

And it's half my fault, but I just like to play the victim 

I'll drink alcohol 'til my friends come home for Christmas

And I'll dream each night of some version of you 

That I might not have, but I did not lose 

Now you're tire tracks and one pair of shoes 

And I'm split in half, but that'll have to do 

So I thought that if I piled something good on all my bad

That I could cancel out the darkness I inherited from dad

No, I am no longer funny, 'cause I miss the way you laugh

You once called me forever, 

now you still can't call me back

ZEEP ZORP

During one of my therapy sessions in the past year, Art (also known as my Professor Dad) asked me for a motion that I could use as a self-soothing method, when I told him that sometimes I didn't have anyone around to ask for a hug or to comfort me. I had to think about it, but then I told him I guess I could bring my palm up to press against my chest, just around my sternum, to simulate the pressure that one would feel during a hug. Sometime in the last few weeks, my sister shared a video with me, that was of me crying at a kind gesture from a cousin of ours, before I'd left Singapore, before I'd ever stepped foot in Canada. In this video, I could be seen soothing myself by pressing my palm against my chest and rubbing it gently yet firmly. That was when I realised I'd been doing the thing before I even knew I was doing it for self-comfort. It was a genuine "huh, cool" moment. 

I ordered a journal for myself that should arrive soon, it's called One Question A Day. It's supposed to have 365 questions and you answer one per day, and compare your answers, year on year for five years. I don't know what the questions are yet, but I hope they're good, and I might update them here weekly, when I'm done answering them, depending on how good of prompts they are. Jeremy recently suggested that I begin to write more often. At first I thought, I write so much for school, I write essay assignments and exams and speeches, why would I write even more? But then I realised he was right. I used to love writing for myself, for fun, and I'd pretty much stopped, because I was too busy with school and work. I want to go back to writing more just for leisure and for the fuck of it, so I guess here I am, starting the new year in a way that I will try to be consistent with. 

A24

The past two months have been a hell of a wave to ride. I juggled four paying jobs with a full course load of school at one point, to earn enough for spring semester's tuition. I was at my behavioral intervention job, did babysitting for the two most adorable, precocious kids in the world, am assisting on a library research project, and I work for the Students' Union, still. To be honest, even with all that, I still managed to do pretty decently in uni. I got into a fellowship scheme for spring, which gives me a tiny stipend for books, and is actually a cross-faculty book club I have to be part of for the semester, so it's going to be even more work on my plate, but hell, if I have to be paid for something, it might as well be for reading books. I also won the Alexandro Malaspina Award for interdisciplinary excellence, which is easy for me, as someone taking a Political Studies Major and a Liberal Studies Minor. The latter award came with $500 cash, so now I have $7000 saved, of my $12,000 spring semester's tuition. And yes that's twelve grand for the next four months, half of which I don't have. People here/domestic students don't seem to really wrap their head around the number until I show them the invoice on the school's website. But you know, we'll see how things go, I guess. So anyway, despite doing decently well in school and work, the issue of the Palestinian genocide weighs heavily on my mind, possibly even more so, because both the country I come from, Singapore, as well as the country I reside in, Canada, are allied much more closely to Israel than they ever should be. I've been to pro-Palestine marches here in Nanaimo, but it's a very small community that attends, and it's disproportionately people of color as opposed to the majority white people who live here. It gives me a constant headache and perpetual existential crisis. I have a Palestine story highlights on my Instagram, if you should need it to be aware of why you should be pro-Palestine. If you're here, reading this, I assume you're already aligned somewhat to most of my beliefs, so I don't think you'd need them, but they're there. They're also resources for you to have conversations with the greater public if you ever wanted to do so. 

MR. DRESSUP

Last week, Alessia and I were entertaining the idea of fostering a kitty in our apartment. Unfortunately, we asked our landlords and they said no, so that was a short-lived dream. Jeremy had won a pair of tickets to see a film as part of the Vancouver International Film Festival, and then we bought a couple more tickets, so I went over to Vancouver last weekend to watch some films. While staying over at Jer's, I also got to spend time with his cat, Barbara, and she's a Maine Coon, so that was nice. The first film we saw was La Chimeras. Both of us felt it was a little long and some of the scenes seemed disjointed at times, but overall I thought it was amusing and the story was a very interesting, intriguing, surprising one. I'd say I liked it and Jeremy gave it a 7/10. The other film was Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe. I hadn't heard of Mr. Dressup prior to the film festival, but apparently he was the Canadian counterpart to Mister Rogers (they were both friends). It was lovely to watch the film and be introduced to a decades-long icon of Canadian children's entertainment, and to such a stellar personality. Ernie Coombs, who played Mr. Dressup, as well as the show he put on, were both so wholesome and heartwarming. I watched as the entire theatre of young and older adults who'd grown up with Mr. Dressup cried as they felt waves of nostalgia at seeing the father figure they'd grown up with. I clearly cried as well, because it was so good to know of such a hopeful persona and TV show, and also because I cry at nearly everything. Jeremy was moved to tears, which is a big deal, because he has trouble crying, and he gave the movie a 10/10. After that movie, Jer took me to MacLeod's Books, one of those old bookstores that are just overflowing with piles upon piles of books and nothing else, no merch and all that. I hadn't known before I stepped in, but apparently the place is a Vancouver institution and well-known among Vancouverites. Whilst browsing, I saw the book Ishmael, a book that I'd seen and read sometime during my travels in LA, and that I very much enjoyed. I made my way through the towering stacks and saw books that reminded me of my professors, one of which was The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, a book that Mark Williams loves to quote from. Whilst I weaved through the tight corners, I heard the elder bookstore owner quiz his two younger employees. When one of them asked the elder where to categorise one of the books and why the author's name sounded so familiar, the older man said "he was the guy who came up with the word 'robot'", and the three of them kept going back and forth about other books and authors. I observed them, entranced, and I told them it was like watching an episode of Jeopardy. I asked the older man if he knew everything in the world, so he responded that he didn't, but when he was back in school way back then, his friends called him a walking encyclopedia. I told him I believed it. I don't really enjoy the dropping temperatures and the start of rainfall, but last weekend was one of those weekends where things felt enchanted and I felt lucky to be alive. It was just one of those days.

RIGHT WHERE YOU LEFT ME

I can’t believe it’s been three months since I went to see Taylor Swift live. A lot has changed, a lot has also stayed the same. 

In personal news, Adam is back in his hometown doing his part for wildland firefighting. He and I still message each other sometimes, though it’s never been anything dubious nor sexually misleading in the past three months. He’s a decent guy, and I think he and I both really liked each other in the day-to-day of things, so that makes things harder, of course. I still think about him when I want to talk about the big things, or the smallest of details in my day.

On the political front, I’ve been to a couple of BCFS meetings and skills workshop weekends. BCFS is the British Columbia Federation of Students, which is basically the union of students’ unions across universities in British Columbia. Two weekends ago, we spent a weekend at Loon Lake Lodge in Maple Ridge on the mainland, it was the perfect weather and I swam properly in Canadian waters for the first time! The week before that, the VIU Students’ Union met with Jagmeet Singh and Lisa Marie Barron, to speak about inflation and how it’s affecting affordability for students. It was surreal to be in a room with Jagmeet Singh, I remember watching his speeches from way back when in Singapore. And now I’m here, representing students, talking about my own experiences, doing the damn thing! I am getting closer to my VIUSU family, and I’m truly glad I’m spending this summer back in Nanaimo instead of working elsewhere.

Speaking of work, I got a job as a care worker for youths with behavioral disorders. One of them has ADHD, is severe on the spectrum disorder, has sensory processing disorder, and last week, because he couldn’t go out for a drive (it’s one of his regulatory activities and we were out of gas), he smashed a window in with his head. It was a lot to deal with, but he’s not very cognisant of things, especially not of fear and danger. I’ve met my therapist Art since then, and it’s interesting to unpack things from my job with him. I wouldn’t have thought I’d do exceptionally well with a high-stress job, but with my kids, it’s like I’m a fly-on-the-wall observing them and their inability to recognise that despite the enormity of their feelings, certain things are simply not urgent in the grand scheme of things. It’s a good lesson to apply for myself.

Summer is lovely, and I guess I’m right where I’ve always been.

LABYRINTH

2022 was a mixed bag, as a year usually is. It was the first complete year I lived on my own, in a brand new country, so I kept reminding myself to live in the moment, and to count the moments. I ran into many unexpected infuriating and upsetting incidents that unsettled me, because I was still building new support systems while trying to maintain the ones from my home country. Nevertheless, I experienced so many wonderful moments, that on the whole, 2022 was a win for me. I explored nature in Haida Gwaii, laughed uproariously with a stellar character and was mesmerised by all the things he taught me while we were literally cut off from the rest of the world. I moved into an apartment with a woman, who’s equal parts mother, sister and friend, she cheers me up when I’m bogged down by life and capitalism, and we also watch raunchy shows on Netflix together because, well, sex is great, what can I say? I met a classmate whom I remembered and who remembered me from when I took online classes whilst stuck in Singapore, circa Covid times. We began studying together in the library, then moved on to driving to get groceries together. In the two weeks before I left to come back to Singapore, it was always his hand I was holding. Even when we were at the university’s board of governors’ meeting, appealing so they wouldn’t raise international tuition fees at a higher rate than domestic fees, for which he had no personal stake in attending, he was still seated next to me, holding my hand through all of two hours, on the day of our exam paper. My favourite professor from freshman year told me after I’d done a cohort presentation on St. Augustine’s Confessions, that she missed me and that I have an “infectious joy”. I came home to my actual family and chosen family members doting on me, gifting me little sums of cash and food I’d been craving. Overall, I wouldn’t change a thing, and I look forward to more, in 2023.

FREEDOM AND ALIENATION

This paper aims to reimagine social relations in a society where private property has been abolished, based on a close reading of The Communist Manifesto as written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. For this paper, we will be making reference to the pages of the course readings packet, which includes the Manifesto.

Marx and Engels write that under capitalism, proletarians essentially live and exist in constant survival mode. This is first exemplified in the passage (132) where the proletariat is described as “a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work… labourers, who must sell themselves piece-meal, are a commodity…” They also illustrate the very real and common day-to-day living scenario (133) in which “no sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so far at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.” Another prime example of this basic survival mode of existence is portrayed (134) in “the growing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating. The unceasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious.”

Given the three examples above, one would be right to conclude that under capitalism, working-class labourers embody a precarious sort of existence, in which they are unable to forecast what their life could look like in a month, let alone a year later or longer. Such conditions are not conducive to dating and building relationships, nor for a traditional family nucleus, as the time required for all working-class people to sustain themselves on minimal wages, essentially means a lack of time for nurturing interpersonal relationships, or at least makes it significantly more challenging to do so. Members of the proletariat more often than not, even observably so in current society, lack the capacity to give of themselves to any other pursuit when their brains are focused on procuring basic necessities to ensure their own survival.

In direct opposition to capitalism, with the abolition of private property, everyone would then be a working and functional member of society. Workers would be reaping the fruits of their own labour, and not a single bit of their labour can be exploited to contribute to anyone else’s capital, and the idea of capital would be abolished. All that time that a proletarian had previously spent at work, only for the bourgeois class to squeeze and reap from their labour and profits, now turns into time that people can spend with their families, friends, and anyone they desired. What currently exists as high rates of isolation and a lingering sense of mistrust will be replaced with healthier and stronger relationships in community, as instead of perpetually experiencing the unending stressors of life in capitalist society, one can then feel like there is much value in spending time on building relationships, without having to consider the opportunity cost of that period of time.

Marx and Engels also expound on the idea (135) that the “proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family-relations; modern industrial labour… has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush as many bourgeois interests.” This can also be seen (135) in “The proletarians… have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property.” This paper explores this idea in terms of housing, which is a basic human right that everyone deserves and should be able to afford. Unfortunately, in a statistic that is sadly needless to bring up, only 25% of young Canadians would be able to afford buying a home. The longer capitalism is allowed to happen, the worse this situation deteriorates. Families require basic security before they can thrive, which begin with a foundation of having a roof over their heads. In current times, the lack of property strips away the right to having healthy and happy families, from the proletariat.

By contrast, in a world without private property, all people who benefit from private ownership, such as landlords and hyper-rich building owners who buy out residential developments with no real need of living space would no longer be able to do so. Instead, people who want to start families and have children may feel much freer and inclined to do so. There is much more security that people can provide each other in terms of married life and family life, without the threat of your home being removed from you.

In another line of thought, Marx and Engels elucidate that within capitalism, proletarians are only able to have surface-level relationships. One such example (132) is found in “owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine.” The workman seems to have less, if any, of an identity, because he is accustomed to his work having lost all charm, and as he has been shown to spend more and more time at work, this reflects a lack of depth of character to the proletarian. When workers have no access to time for exploring their real desires and likes, the relationships they form will then be on a superficial level, as they are not even completely aware of who they are as people. These surface-level relationships can happen in all the forms, whether it is a romantic courtship, or even in terms of friendship. The proletarian would not be able to develop sincere friendships as none of them can build real connections.

This is fairly distinguishable from the scenario that we can imagine if private property were to be abolished. In our current state of extremely high productivity, and if all labourers are not shackled down producing capital for the bourgeoisie, these former labourers can also enjoy the fruits of their own labour. They would have the time and independence to explore all the things that pique their curiosity in the world, they will be closer to their real and natural souls, and they will know better what they like and dislike. From there, they would all be equipped with a better knowledge of whether their romantic or platonic interests are healthy, genuine, and deep, instead of based on superficial and insignificant things, simply due to ignorance. Marx and Engels also highlight the difference (138) that “in bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer.”

Another visible feature of capitalism that Marx and Engels heavily criticise is the presence and promotion of hypercompetition and hyperindividualism. One such example is when they write (140) that the bourgeois “has not even a suspicion that the real point is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production.” In today’s society, many liberal capitalists are under the impression that having more women business owners is something to be celebrated, and we toast to the idea of “girlboss queens”, who seem to “have it all.” However, whilst these successful businesswomen may have broken through some form of glass ceiling, it also emphasises the idea that everyone should necessarily work so hard. It pretends that if everybody competed with each other, it would be to everyone’s benefit as it promotes “innovation”, instead of hyperindividualism. In Communism, because all class struggle is resolved, all oppression would be non-existent, and women will no longer have to compete with men to prove themselves.

On the final point, Marx and Engels also denounce the imperialist cultures of extraction and exploitation that are commonplace within capitalism. The first passage in which they shed light on this (130) is in, “all old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones.” Another example (129) of this is, “It has resolved personal worth into exchange value. In one word, for exploitation… naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.” The final nail in the coffin (131) is found in, “Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture.”

We believe that Marx and Engels may have looked badly upon the extraction and exploitation of natural resources, as the daily occurrence of it might be internalised by everyone in society, whether proletariat or bourgeoisie. When one is so accustomed to exploitation being naturalised and normalised, perhaps that is a model for interpersonal relations that take place in capitalist society. Marx and Engels did believe that all things are materialist, and so as people observe behaviours in society, we might be inclined to act and think in the same way, and believe that it is justified to be exploitative even in interpersonal relationships.

To contrast with this idea, in a Communist society, where there is no competition, no class struggle, no need for hyperextraction and exploitation of finite resources in nature, people would emulate such behaviours in their dealings with one another. There would be more mutual respect, and at the very least, a core belief that everybody has inherent worth beyond what they can produce and contribute to someone else’s capital.

MEEP MOOP

I’ve been back in society for exactly a month. I moved to this room three weeks ago and I really like it here, I might post photos here when it’s all furnished. I’m waiting for a poster to be delivered (it’s of Taylor Swift, obviously). It’s a new house in a relatively new neighborhood. We’re further away from school but I live with Alessia and she’s an amazing roommate to have. I’ve been overwhelmed by school and other things. Classes actually get progressively tougher the longer you go through your education, who woulda thunk?? I’m also part of Students’ Union and the university senate so I’m trying my best to balance all my responsibilities equally well. I felt like Instagram was not helping, I’m a sociable person but sometimes I think I give away a lot of attention and energy for absolutely no justifiable reason. I don’t want random people to have access to my person without it also nourishing me as a person. I’m trying to limit my use of Instagram so call me, beep me, if you wanna reach me! If we’re friends, you should already have my cell number or just ask and I’ll give it to you. Alright, I’m off to read some school texts and do some work. See ya on the flip side.

HANGTIME

I've been in Haida Gwaii since Friday. I've fed a wild deer (got lots of responses on Instagram!) and gone fishing once. The day we came into the island, I got a little queasy on the boat because I wasn't dressed well, it was cold and it had been a long day. Yesterday we went out fishing, and the guide put on loud music, I was dressed properly, and every time we caught a wave it felt like I could have been wakeboarding. My friend Dani caught a salmon, and I saw it from when it was alive and struggling, to it being fileted and sealed in a plastic package. Fishing, I can do without, but the boat rides, man, the boat rides make me feel like I'm living my best life. I'll be working at West Coast Fishing Club, and my long play is to get one of the guests to adopt me. If they can afford a 3-day vacation at 8K CAD, I don't think my tuition would be such a big issue for them, right? The whole lodge feels like it's working together, the guides with their songs and fishing knowledge, right down to us ladies serving at the restaurant. Today I helped my boss and formatted the menu for the restaurant that I'll be serving at. It sounds delicious, so I'm looking forward to tasting bits and pieces. The owner of the lodge brought his dogs down to the island, but I haven't seen them. Apparently the owner of Lush Canada will be here for a stay this season, and I love Lush, as a brand, still. She was here for a previous season and after she left, she sent lots of Lush products to the fishing lodge for our staff, so I hope she does it again this year. I LOVE LUSH PRODUCTS!!!!!!! Also, I'm a whore for free things, because I'm poor. When I get a rich person to adopt me, all I'll do is redistribute the money channelled to me, after paying for tuition. I cannot believe people have the money to drop on a three-day fishing vacation, that is also the cost of my one semester/three months of tuition. This world makes no sense to me. 

PRIMORDIAL POUCH

Sometimes you don’t learn a lesson unless and until it is too late. So you lay in bed, breathing slowly, through your mouth, because your nose is clogged with snot. It doesn’t get easier, but apparently you learn to handle things better. Apparently. You tell yourself, think of the worst thing that’s ever happened in your life. That’s easy, it was when I was pregnant and had a miscarriage and fell out with my mother and was depressed. I cried through an entire train journey in Singapore, bawled, wept, and a lady came up to me with an entire pack of tissue paper, telling me that whatever it was, I would get through it. I did. But it doesn’t get easier. Never will. The pain and hurt you go through, maybe it is proportional to the pain and hurt you have caused another to go through, so you sit with it, sit with the ache and emptiness in the lower part of your belly. Breathe into it, isn’t that what your meditation app tells you to do? So you breathe. You think of Taylor Swift. Why do you think of Taylor Swift? You don’t know, but you do. Why does it take forever to know what love is, and no time at all to lose it? On my birthday, I wished to ease my way in this capitalist world, but perhaps I should have wished for emotional maturity and peace instead. Maybe I do not know what I’m sorely lacking in. 

LOST FUR

WHY WASTE TIME SAY LOT WORDWHEN FEW WORD DO TRICK

My sister is figuring out her finances and affording life in Singapore, so we both commiserated with each other for being peasants.

Peasants earning peanuts eating peanuts who turn out more peasants. If you don't get that, it's okay, neither does anyone else.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE IMPOSSIBLY MESSY

Last week, I was in New York. I went with Jeremy, I used my flight credit to get us the flights there, and Tina was away for the first bit of our trip, and stayed at her boyfriend Cesar's place when she got back, so she let us stay in her apartment. Jeremy picked up the tab for all our other expenses.

New York City was... a trip. Because we had only one week there, I tried to cram as many things as I could for Jeremy's sake, who had never been. When we arrived, we had a boo-boo with unlocking Tina's apartment door, and so we had to call the locksmith at midnight. I have now learned that lesson for all future locks, for the rest of my lifetime.

However, when we finally got in, we found that Tina had prepared some stuff on the kitchen table. She had folded some origami, made some doodles of us, and given me a disposable camera for my trip.

Before we'd arrived, Tina kept saying she hoped I'd like her place. I hadn't been there before because she'd been living with her ex the last time I was in NYC, but the moment we got in, I knew that no matter what happened on the trip, I'd enjoy being in her apartment. It was just the right size of an apartment I'd like for myself, small but for a simple, contained life. It was decorated the way Tina would decorate it, and as she's one of my best friends, I clearly liked her aesthetic. There was a bit of romance, a lot of nerdy, some quirky. I felt her vibe in there and I felt at home.

Jeremy and I started our trip with a karaoke session at Sing Sing Avenue A, where our bartender Amy was the loveliest. It was the first time, when we asked for her favorite music, Jeremy and I had ever heard anyone say "I don't listen to music, I hate it," because Amy works at the karaoke place. I suppose it kinda made sense that she doesn't wanna listen to any version of music after spending major portions of her week having to listen to people butcher all the songs.

During most of the week, the weather was still rainy and cold, sometimes even colder than Vancouver because the wind was stronger there than in Vancouver for some reason. However, on one of the milder-weather days, we took a walk in Prospect Park and Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and I was treated to a vision of the pinkest cherry blossom trees. Jeremy is from Vancouver where they have the same thing, so it wasn't as much of a treat for him as it was for me.

The lady was telling her child that ducks have webbed feet, so I heard him repeating "webbed feet" very slowly and tentatively, it was so cute. I don't know that he even understood what webbed feet mean. It was such a precious moment for me to have witnessed, and I'm amazed that it happens all the time when you're raising a child! 

(the color contrast in photos is 'cos some were taken with our phones and some were developed with the disposable camera from Tina!)

I enjoyed that day very much. Jeremy got me snacking bacon from Dunkin Donuts, and at first I was like, why the fuck did you get me snacking bacon from Dunkin Donuts, of all things???? But lo and behold, it was the best bacon I'd ever had in my life??? It was moist and like a little bit sweet, like they'd seasoned it with honey or syrup or something, and had the right amount of salt and pepper, and it was from DUNKIN DONUTS, so maybe I was just hungry, and Jeremy knew it better than I did.

The next day, we were due to watch Hadestown, a musical that one of Jeremy's work friends had told us to watch. I was wearing a vintage dress and to match me, Jeremy had packed a suit. He didn't have comfortable dress shoes, though, so he'd planned to get them the morning of the musical before meeting me back at the apartment to set off from there. The bus back from the shoe store was delayed, so Jeremy was late.

On the way to the theatre, I was stewing in my anger on the train, because we were rushing for a musical, and I knew we would miss a little of it, and it wasn't the first time Jeremy's ADHD had messed up the day on our trip. When we got to the theatre, I was positively having a breakdown, and when Jeremy held the small of my back to calm me, I actually shrieked "don't touch me!" but it was during the second song of Hadestown, so no one else heard me, besides him and myself.

I have issues with emotional regulation and containing my anger, so that was definitely one of the lowest points on our trip. Whilst I got immersed in the first act of Hadestown, Jeremy was so taken aback he couldn't focus on the show. That was a terrible mistake, because Hadestown was amazing and one of my new favorite musicals (it's romantic AND about anti-capitalism, what in all fucks and HOW did I not write it????!!!!), and I wish I hadn't robbed Jeremy of the experience. 

When we talked about it later in the week, I asked Jeremy if he would take his medication whilst he spent time with me, so that he could be a little more functional, but he doesn't like them because apparently ADHD meds all cause stress on the heart, which means ageing faster. So it's a complete stalemate, because either Jeremy ages faster, or he lives with his ADHD symptoms and I'm constantly stressed, causing me to age faster. It also frustrates me that I know I have flaws with my emotional volatility and am seeking help for it with therapy, but he doesn't seem to do much for his ADHD.

He does the weirdest things like absolutely needing to buy dress shoes to match an outfit for one day, apparently ADHD causes you to prioritise things in ways I don't understand??? I had seven different outfits for the week, but I wore my low-cut sneakers with all of them, even the vintage dress, because style is what you make of it, and you don't have to be so rigid about it? Like, which stuck-up rich white person even made the rules and why do I have to follow them? Who says you need to wear dress shoes with a suit??? Even though I wore mismatched sneakers with all my outfits, I still got compliments on each of them??? Because I know I'm stylish????? 

Anyway. On one of the days, we went to The Met. I'd told Jeremy he would love the museum, and indeed he did. He took five hundred and thirty-something photos and videos, and he only stopped because his phone died. I don't have much in the way of photographic evidence to put up here, but they're all on my Instagram story highlights. Of the maybe five (lololol) museums I've been to, The Met is absolutely, undeniably my favorite. It's got such a fantastic collection.

On Thursday, we went to Harlem for the jazz museum. 

We went to a few jazz shows and jazz clubs because Jeremy is starting his degree in jazz this fall. I have videos of those, again on Instagram. I don't really get jazz, but I think it's lovely to see Jeremy enjoying it, and of course it's easy to appreciate talented musicians.

On Friday, we finally met Tina.

I always say I love the fact that I have two kinda elder sisters, Tina and my cousin, Hazwani. I call them both Kakak, which means elder sister in Malay. I'm kakak to so many, so it's nice when I'm the baby. Because I'm THE REAL BABY.

I had gotten tickets for Jeremy and I, and Tina and Cesar for a show at Caveat, and the show was done by Depths of Wikipedia.

On the way there, Jeremy was curious as to the nature of the show, which I didn't know, because I like to go in to things blind and be surprised. I was slightly worried the show would be a flop because I didn't know anything about it, but it was hilarious and fun and entertaining and engaging. Jeremy, Cesar and Tina all really got into it, and I'm so glad we got a good pick of a show! If you're ever in NYC, go to Caveat, and I hope you get a lovely game/show as well, though they usually do have an awesome selection.

My favorite parts of this trip were the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, watching Hadestown, staying in Tina's apartment, The Met, and Caveat.

When we got back, Jeremy and I had a serious conversation, and we broke up. It was funny (not haha funny, more like uncanny funny), it all happened in the lead-up to/through/after my birthday. Jeremy had gotten me a small strawberry shortcake to have myself, and I blew the candles on it, and through it all, we knew we might not be spending much more time together, so I was happy on my birthday, but I was also so sad.

but you keep my old scarf

from that very first week
'cos it reminds you of innocence

and it smells like me,
you can't get rid of it

'cos you remember it all too well

'cos there we are again 

when I loved you so

Anyway. Yesterday I was back in Nanaimo, and I met Marcus for lunch. He asked me out to lunch so we could have a send-off before I leave for my summer job in Haida Gwaii. We talked about Ukraine and Hong Kong, and his plans for school, and New York, and Hadestown, and I find that when I'm with Marcus, it's so easy and chill and comfortable. I always feel strange meeting Marcus, I clearly like him more than a friend, and I'm trying my best not to be that person who's like "I'll be friends with him until he likes me more," because clearly that's gross and creepy. I want to be friends with him, but I've always had trouble making the distinction between platonic and romantic, once I've crossed the line. 

Jeremy says he'd like to be friends in future, when I'm able to do so, but I obviously have had trouble with this all through my life. I told Jeremy I do the same thing even with Joey, and every man I've ever had romantic feelings for. I'm just a girl with trauma and am trying my best, and staying friends with people I like so much, confuses the hell out of me. I like Jeremy and Marcus and Joey and Ben and why do I have to choose?!?!! I like them all 'cos they all have different appeals, and I have all the feelings.

Send fucken help, man. I need all the help.