expectations

Memolane is this thing that sends me emails of things I tweeted 1 year ago and 2 years ago. Yesterday it sent me a tweet that had this amanda palmer blogpost in it, and I said something akin to "Have faith in yourselves!". I reread the blogpost, and my major takeaway is something different.

I don't know. I think my self of 2 years ago was so optimistic. I'm optimistic now, but in a more... pragmatic manner? I am not feeling that starry-eyed joy anymore that I felt from doing things. Or if I do, it lasts a lot shorter, and I'm reminded that the thing I just got happy about isn't really all that. haha I don't know if it's the anthropology speaking, but I am compelled to make myself see both sides of a situation, and so I don't just see the happy side. I've also partied a lot more in the two years since, and now I don't think that much of parties anymore. Which is great! I've got the partying out of my system.

The bit that most stands out to me, upon my more recent reading, is this:

"your expectations of YOUR LIFE from when you were 12 years old, 15 years old, 25 years old, they will gnaw and haunt you. no doubt.
every love you left, every love you never chased, every career path you didn’t follow, every instrument you didn’t practice, every time you kept your mouth shut and should have spoken up, every time you said too much.
but none of that exists NOW. it’s gone, over, non-existant.

the same way your parents’ expectations haunt you. and your teachers and the noise of cultural expectations haunt you.
all these voices in your head bicker and argue and obscure the real key to freedom:
your ability to stand still and ask:

who do i want to be

and what do i want to do

RIGHT. NOW.

?

you can live in a free country, but you’re not free unless you allow your own fucking self to be free IN THIS MOMENT, here, NOW, and not locked up in the dreams of your past, or the potential regrets of the future."

It really resonates with me.

When I was 10 years old I wanted to be a genetic scientist. I was literally brought up to believe that my purpose for going to school was to be able to go to a prestigious university and to study something fancy and be a researcher/ doctor/ lawyer/ architect etc. When I was 18, I still believed this, that I was supposed to put into practice what I had wanted all those years ago. That I'm letting my past self down, my parents down, my education down. Being in the gifted programme and having the a government bursary for all those years, and being in RG, constantly reminds you that you are "lucky" to have these things, and you should not let the education system down by failing, and doing badly in school. I felt disappointed in myself for not fulfilling these expectations.

The above quote argues that the expectations that you had of yourself in the past and that people have of you are not relevant, and what matters most is what you want of yourself now.

It's just a bit strange, though, because when you have different experiences, your expectations change, and you want different things. Long-term planning has no place in this model. For example, undergraduate study needs you to decide on something and commit yourself to it for 3-4 years. Your expectations might change within that few years, but it's not feasible to keep jumping off the wagon and doing something different.

I don't know. In my opinion, if I changed my major now, it would be a waste of my time. I know lots of people switch unis or courses in their second year, and started over. I don't think that's for me. It was hard enough for me to decide on a course to do, and to have to decide again would be too much effort for too little gain. But of course my expectations haven't really changed when I decided that I would study BA Anthropology. On the contrary, studying in my first year convinced me that I really liked the subject, and that this was the right way to go.

I don't really know what I expect of myself now, though. This is the bit which made me think. I do not have many expectations, as long as I liked what I studied, it would be okay. Perhaps my expectation of myself at this moment is to just stick it and hopefully get my degree in a few years. Keep volunteering at theatre things because it is one of the activities that makes me feel like not wanting to off myself, keep life modeling for the money, and for the sense of body peace. I don't hate my body so much now, and I feel proud of myself when I've successfully held a hard pose and not given up. I'm trying to convince myself that the ridiculous emailing, record-keeping, and bureaucracy is good training if I ever need to be a freelancer when I graduate.

Thinking about what I want and why I want them is helpful, I guess.
My dad asks me why I put in ridiculous hours to "work for free". The hours were just bad on one project, but on that one I experienced a great sense of camaraderie and teamwork that made me feel better about myself and not so shitty. Sitting alone in a quiet room when you're supposed to study for weeks on end can make you feel shitty. I didn't really have anyone to talk to because the people in my flat don't really do that, and I tried "socialising" but it just made me feel worse, because I couldn't socialise. Going to things for the sake of socializing felt stupid.

Volunteering's like... my extracurricular activity. Just like how people play rugby or bridge or table tennis or whatever outside school. Volunteering is what I used to do in singapore, I'm used to it, I'm "good" at it, I feel proud doing it, so I do it here in london for a sense of continuity. Do most people who play sport in uni continue to do it professionally? No. Therefore I think it's ok for me to volunteer in an industry, and for it to be completely unrelated to my course at uni.

don't know where I'm going with this. work tomorrow, I'm tired, night.

I can't forget about how my mum brought up the fact that she thinks my aunt "laughs at me for going to leakycon" and I had to spend the weekend with said aunt and family, and they didn't laugh at me about it, but they kept on asking me about it. They asked how long I was going to be there, what I was going to do there... etc. I don't get how it's so big of a deal. It's none of their business.  

I feel guilty for going, because of the money, but if my mum didn't make me take summer school along with going to the con, I would have been able to pay for the whole trip on my own. But the thing about my mum is that she says "oh money is not a problem", then she says it's "a waste of money" if I fly there just for the con... I don't understand her logic at all. The tuition for taking summer classes is way more than the flight, and then I have to pay rent for two places at once, my room in London and the room I'm going to be in in chicago.

The other day I was skyping to her and she went, "oh, why don't you think about transferring to university of chicago next year?" just because of the rankings. I convinced her out of it, but it seems like she's so detached from everything. She doesn't seem to understand that transferring to a school in a WHOLE OTHER COUNTRY is more than just buying a plane ticket and leaving. And then she tells me that I have to come back to "reality" and harry potter is just "an imaginary world" and that I have to "grow up", and stop going to cons. I don't know what reality she lives in, where you can transfer to any school you like, in any city. She doesn't even remember the name of leakycon, she just calls it "wikileaks" because it sounds the same. 

I don't hate my mum. I just wish she could keep her thoughts to herself about how "everyone" will laugh at me. I got so angry at her the last time that I had to hang up on skype, and I felt guilty for doing that. I would understand where she was coming from if she had to pay for my trip, but she doesn't. I don't get it. 

Maybe things would be better if I had a more communicative relationship with my mum. Though I don't think it is possible. I tried not telling her about me going to the convention, but she found out about it through my aunt, because I'd told her. Then my dad told my mum. I did bring it up when my parents came to visit in december, but I hadn't updated them since then and they didn't think I was serious about going. I didn't tell my mum because I knew she would tell me not to go, and I would feel guilty. Hypothetically I could completely disregard my parents and not call them at all, and just go without telling my mum. But I didn't do that. I call my family at least once a week.

I can't bring up the fact that I'm going to leakycon to have fun and see friends. It would be a reason for her to tell me not to go. She thinks it's a waste of money to do that. I can't even tell her about my friends, because she will say "don't spend so much time going out", "don't hang out with those kind of people", "don't drink", "don't go to those places", "that's a sleazy place, don't go there". So I don't tell her about a lot of my personal life. I feel that that would put me in more trouble.

I don't know how to phrase this post so that I sound like I'm trying to have a better relationship with my mum, or to make you understand how my mum does not believe in spending money on "fun", but it's okay to spend lots of money on summer classes that will not even contribute to my degree. She thinks it looks better on my CV. The only thing that I think my summer classes say about me is that I'm a silly rich kid who doesn't need the job that they're applying for. 

Relating to this, I get super ticked off whenever someone asks me if I'm out to my parents now, because it feels like a "progress" thing. Like I'm not fully mature as an lgbt person if I haven't come out to my parents. I just feel out of place, because most of my queer friends at uni are out to their parents, and I feel like this rebellious child for not coming out to my parents. Coming out or not is a personal choice, and you have to understand _my_ parents, or asian parents, before thinking that coming out is part of growing up. I don't even talk about my personal life with my parents, they don't think very highly of me as it is, why would I tell them that I'm gay and give them another reason to look down on me?  

ticked off

I have to stop hanging out at queer-centric events for a while. It makes me stressed.

The next person who talks about coming out, or who asks me if I’m Out to my parents, I will smack them around the head. it feels like a “progress” thing. Like I’m not fully mature as an lgbt person if I haven’t come out to my parents. I just feel out of place, because most of my queer friends at uni are out to their parents, and I feel like this rebellious secretive child for not coming out to my parents. Coming out or not is a personal choice, and you have to understand _my_ parents, or asian parents, before thinking that coming out is part of growing up. I don’t even talk about my personal life with my parents, they don’t think very highly of me as it is, why would I tell them that I’m gay and give them another reason to look down on me? It would be like throwing a spanner into the works.

In singapore, other queer people are respectful of boundaries, and they don’t ask intrusive questions about your parents. Do people here not understand the meaning of tact? 

4:58am

I just miss all of you, okay? and I’m missing people right now because people are leaving and I can’t handle things like that. I want all of my favorite people in the world to be in the same room, physically standing next to me right now. I want to share a huge house with all my friends who live like, everywhere. 

That will probably never happen.

I guess the best thing about all this internet-friending and travelling is that I’ll have people to visit and hug and stay with wherever I may be in the world. That’s a pretty comforting thought. I’ll never be alone. :)

oh cool

benji schwimmer was 22 when he started thinking he was gay.
Makes me feel not so left out :)

idk, there are kids in my school who knew they were gay since they were 12, or 14, at that early teen period. Last year, someone asked me how long I knew I was gay and I said, "about 1.5 years." and she gave me this cynical "oh". As if she was skeptical of my gay-ness and she thought it was just a phase. Like my feeling of being not-straight was not taken seriously. It felt like she thought I was one of those bi-curious girls who just liked "experimenting" and didn't *really* like girls. I also disagree with the attitude towards the label "bi-curious"; it's perfectly legitimate to feel bi-curious, and others shouldn't make you feel less than. It's just... the word tends to be associated with porn/ escorting, and female-identifying porn workers who will make out with girls because they will get paid more.

Sometimes when I think about my own coming-out, I feel a bit late to the game, compared with others. There was a point when I doubted myself because I was already so "old" and had so little relationship experience, and felt like a fake wannabe-gay person. Now it's been about 2.5 years, and I still don't identify with being bi or lesbian, I identify as queer. It's not like I haven't given this a lot of thought; I have, 2.5 years worth.

But sometimes gay people boil it down to: Do you like cocks or vaginas or both? and I'm like-- how do I like an anatomical structure if I've barely seen it before in real life? I don't see a penis or a vagina and think, "that turns me on", to me it's just a body part, like your armpit or elbow or bellybutton. It exists to serve a function. Why am I expected to be turned on by penises, when I find them odd and weird, or sometimes disgusting? Same for vaginas. I mean they have artistic merit; everyone has a different-looking one, and they're complex, but I don't think, "I want some of that". I look at people and I get turned on, but not isolated body parts. I can go, "oh, he/she has a nice ass", but that ass has to be attached to a person. 

I don't like how society, or other people, expect my sexuality to be an automatic, almost biological, thing. It's easy for straight people to like penises/vaginas and explain it away as a evolved desire, but what if I don't even want to have sex with anyone? I don't know, I don't want to be pressured to "decide", and it's not a cut and dry, easy decision to make. I don't even know if it's a conscious choice or not.

It sometimes makes me afraid, because I have the tiny feeling that my family or relatives expect me to marry a man. (well, my two grandaunts didn't marry anyone.) It feels like the next stage in life that I'm expected to undergo, in, say, 7-10 years. I've been able to explain away my lack of boyfriend due to perceived nerdiness and "antisocial" behavior. To my family's favor, they haven't been putting any pressure on me about boyfriends yet, which is great. But at this moment in time, the idea of me having sex with a male-identifying person repulses, and to a certain extent, scares me. It'll be like Bed Song. I don't want to end up like Bed Song. I'd rather sleep on my own than be in that situation. sigh.