(I started typing this yesterday. Internet went down so I uploaded it today.)
I will start off my first post in about a gazillion years with about a gazillion (or a fraction of that) words about how completely narcissistic and impossibly materialistic American shows are in MTV. Seriously, what goes on in those producers' heads? Why on earth are they promoting this insidious over-reliance on all things tangible and the 'importance' of I, Me, Myself?
I caught the last few minutes of an episode of 'My Sweet Sixteen' or something along these lines just tonight when I went down for dinner. My sister was watching it, of course, since I would never, for the life of me (or so I think), willingly tune in to such a sickeningly sickening show. I'm not saying that all American girls act like this one I saw and that all American girls are materialistic and self-centred, but to show this kind of behaviour and deem in as 'COOL' and 'IN' is really over-doing it.
I'm not sure of the name of the person who was hosting the 'Sweet Sixteen' in the episode, but I do know that she is one of the first real life examples I've come across of the rather popular stereotype of 'blonds are bimbos and have none or one brain cell'. I don't really believe this so-called generalisation of the blond population because hair colour in no way decides how bimbotic a person will be, but by gum, this girl is challenging my very belief!
Her 'Sweet Sixteen' was a grand party in Las Vegas, complete with some gambling machines inside the hall area where her party is held. Before the birthday bash started she and her 'VIP's were already waiting for the guests in a back room which she will appear from later (escorted by a dude wearing nothing but black trousers and a bow tie, no shirt). I don't dislike her for wanting her birthday to be 'special' but what really got to me was the statement she made about her 'VIP's, the people who will be emerging with her from the back room later (like brides maids to a bride).
"They should be hono[u]red that they're here. It's a special privilege. They better not screw this up or else. I want my Sweet Sixteen to be perfect. It's all about me, I want all eyes on me." (Not accurate, of course, but just summarising the gist. No, I'm not twisting the meaning...)
I mean, what? Honoured to be at her birthday party? What kind of friend says this of her friends? Or does it mean that they aren't actually her friends? I don't really know the context of this situation but all I know is that people aren't dispensible like that. My goodness, if you want someone to honour you that badly, don't sound so high and mighty! Isn't it common sense that someone to be honoured should be someone who is respectable? As far as I know I'm not going to be respecting anyone like that soon.
For goodness sake, the world doesn't revolve around you! So what if it's your Sweet Sixteen? Congratulations, you're a second older than you were before, but so is everyone else! What I'm saying is, everyone is the same. There's no, "Oh, I'm more special than you since it's my birthday today." The world doesn't work like that! I couldn't be bothered who the heck you are or when your birthday is, and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't matter to the guests or the 'VIP's either.
I'm almost certain that what they'll remember from this party is:
1) Oh yeah, I had a great time.
2) This is the best Sweet Sixteen ever, but mine will be better.
3) Whose party was it again?
4) We really went crazy with the entertainment!
5) She's HOT, and so, so SEXY, but what's her name again?
And the list goes on and on. Point is, there is nothing more superficial than trying to please a crowd of people who likely don't know anything about at all other than your name and birthday, and are sucking up to you because you have great assets under your name and on your body.
I remember there was this once in the episode when the crowd was going wild over the (rather famous, I assume) band she invited to 'liven up' the party. Needless to say they livened the crowd up well. A little too well. She tried to call for the end of the little concert but the lead singer simply ignored her and said, "Your host thinks you guys should stop the party. But you know what I think? I think this party needs to rock on!" The crowd cheers, and the birthday girl stomps off mutter a string of censored curses.
You can see how much everybody cares for her here.
Earlier on her mother brought her to get a belly piercing, which she thought looked 'COOL' and commented on it, "Now I really feel sixteen!"
Yes, I can totally see how 'sixteen' you are just by looking at the belly piercing on your belly button. Oh wait, I can't even see it. *rolls eyes*
What does it mean to be 'sixteen' anyway? A large birthday bash? A sleek, beautiful Mercedes to drive around in and show off to your friends, having them clamour all over you and sucking up to you just so they can hitch a ride? A belly piercing? A sparkly, skimpy dress to prance around in and show off your wonderfully voluptuous figure? A boy in tight black trousers and a bow tie (no shirt, remember?) holding the hand which paid him to do so while walking toward a crowd of screaming teenagers who are either lusting after your flesh or the boy's well-toned abbs?
How about some maturity? How about some common sense? How about some LASTING friendships?
What's wrong with the pop culture these days? Can't they advertise the value of friendship instead of expensive celebrations and fragile relationships built on flimsy dollar bills and credit cards?
I can't help but compare what I'm seeing on the television with what I see around me daily. On the television I see raging hormones and glamarous expenditures, in Singapore I don't see any of this. Maybe being in a rather academically-focussed school has locked me out of some of the wilder sides of today's teenagers, but you don't see the local media adveritising that kind of selfish, money-minded and pleasure seeking lifestyle to our youngsters. The media, even with all its faults and opacity with issues like censorship, advocates lasting commitments and the value of emotional support and encouragement.
When I look at my sister in retrospect, I figure that hey, maybe she isn't so bad after all. Maybe, if I try, I can bring her back to the emotionally sensitive girl she was once before. Maybe, if I try hard enough, she will care less about the materialistic demands of her 'friends' and instead try to make real friends that don't need a S$30+ dress for her birthday present. Maybe, just maybe, if I try, I can make her see that she doesn't money so much after all.
I don't really know what is going to happen to the society if the media continues broadcasting these kinds of shows. I don't WANT to know what will happen. I hope that MTV will either stop airing these kinds of frivolous shows and start screening something of VALUE, or that Singapore will censor MTV's programs, like it does everything else.
I for one and glad for Singapore's strict censorship, because I cannot fathom what kind of future generation of leaders we will be nurturing if being a party heiress is something that is on their 'Top 10 Jobs I Desire' list. I simply cannot (and refuse to) imagine the future that lies ahead of Singapore should such wild behaviour be encouraged through the media.
I will not say I am a strong individual and am forever resistant to the increasing influential power of the media, so let me ask this favour of you. If you ever see me doing something as crazy as what MTV is promoting, let me know. Show me this blog post, and hope that I have enough sense left in me to figure out that what I'm doing is not what I want.
I want to live a fulfilling life knowing the value of friends, family, and the God up there who loved me enough to sacrifice his son for my redemption. I don't want a life of spirally disrepair knowing only of money and how to please myself.
I want to LIVE.
I don't want to blow up a picture of my pretty face and hang it in the entrance hall to welcome my guests and feel a burst of happiness when they say that the girl in the picture is sexy and beautiful. I don't want to show cleavage and smile like a thousand suns when someone tells me that they're jealous of me. That's not living. That's just plain degrading.
Of course, I neither have a pretty face nor some incredible cleavage, but I'm sure you get what I mean.
I want to LIVE.
And when I die, I want people to remember my NAME, not the party I hosted 50 years ago. I want them to remember that I'm the girl who lent them an eraser when they had none. I want them to remember me as the stranger that picked up a wallet and returned it when they dropped it. I want them to remember the sincere desire to help them, or just to let them know that I care, whoever they are.
I want to LIVE.
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I also watched an episode of ‘Teens Cribs’ or something where this 13 year old American boy was showing the TV crew around his magnificent home. I cannot deny its magnificence, but I also cannot deny that I thought, 'If you have money to build a basketball court, a pool larger than my home, at least 5 bedrooms twice the size of mine, 2 gyms, a movie theatre, a bowling alley, a golf course, a sauna and so much more, buy a normal house, spend time with your family, and donate the unnecessary money away to charity!'
The parents were commenting on how they want their children to have the best facilities, so that when their friends come over they will always have something to do. I don't understand their way of thinking. I really don't.
Shouldn't they be encouraging friendship built on emotional bonds? What are they doing about those friendships built on material wealth that is being accumulated?
I don't enjoy the way the boy goes, "Now that I've showed you my awesome room and awesome gym I'm going to show you XXX because I think it will amaze you." "This is where we play table tennis. I always win of course." "Oh, we play tic-tac-toe here too. Of course, I'm the best."
WHAT?
Did I also mention that each of the 5 children have a ride each, either a scooter or a motorcycle, and the dad has 2 rides, a very large jeep-like thing that seats the entire family and a rather cool looking bike that is huge beyond what should be allowed of something that's called a 'bike'?
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Today wasn’t spectacular, but it certainly started off rather interestingly. My father overslept today (didn’t hear the digital alarm clock go off) and since he was my alarm clock, I overslept too. I ended up waking at 06:15, a whole half hour later than when I usually do wake up. I missed the school bus, quite obviously.
Because of this my father decided that he would send me to school directly by the car, which I was elated to hear because I hardly ever take the car. In fact, I don’t take it unless it’s a weekend or a special day because I don’t need the car to get to and from school. Being very new to waking up at 06:15, I didn’t really know what to do. Well, yes, I knew I had to brush my teeth and tie my hair, but I was rather lost outside of that.
My father dropped my mother off at Toa Payoh MRT station before sending my sister to her school. To be honest, her school looked like it was located in the middle of nowhere. Traffic was almost non-existent, something very odd for a school with that kind of prestige (St. Nick’s). Perhaps we were early, because my dad was rushing to get me to school on time.
I arrived at school at around 07:05, 15 minutes later than I usually do. Morning assembly went on as usual, and classes bored me, same as ever. The first period was PE. We all went down to the field and those who weren’t helping Amanda take her PE assessment were made to run 2 rounds around the track.
ShuYing and I did run the first one until she got a stitch under the area where her heart is supposed to be, so we stopped running and walked for a while. Mr. Ho saw us walking and yelled at us to continue running. I was rather amused at how he didn’t bother checking the situation before demanding something from us. But we ran though, because Mr. Ho can be scary when he wants to be and we dare not take risks.
We completed the first round, and were completely horrified to find out that we were ‘ordered’, so to speak, to run twice. Being horrified and mortified by the prolonged running period did not stop us from running, though, because it was teacher’s orders, and we are good students after all.
However, due to the ‘chronic’ fatigue caused by the first round around the track, we walked half the entire stretch of the track before continuing to run, and ended up as the last to return back to the finishing point, wheezing and panting like we had ran a marathon. For a person as unfit as me, yes, I do believe this can be considered a kind of physically taxing race.
After some stretching led by Thao (it was her, right?) we proceeded to the car park area which doubled as a parade square to play some very ruthless Captain’s Ball. Well, not ‘we’, more like ‘they’. ShuYing and I stood off to a corner of the court where our Captain was and waited like soldiers on guard duty for a ball to come our way.
It’s rare for the ball to head our way, that’s for sure, because neither of us really have a history of being fantastic at sports, so people find it much harder to trust us than those physically active people like Annabel. I completely understand, and since I myself didn’t really want to get my hands all funny smelling and dirty by touching the ball, I was satisfied.
Then the moment when the ball flew our way came. I am inclined to believe that this ball was a stray ball, because I can’t think of any reason why anyone would pass the ball to this ‘hopeless at sports with zero motivation and spirit’ person, especially when it was so close to the goal.
Being the nice team mate I was I scored ‘beautifully’, and it was nice having people say, “Nice one” to me for a change, although it did feel a bit awkward and I turned away immediately after confirming we had scored successfully. It was nice knowing that for a few moments people relied and depended on me, but I shouldn’t get caught up in this feeling because people don’t naturally gravitate towards me. I have to do something to get people to do so, and I am not willing to try and take my place among the ‘athletic’ group of people. I was never really athletic in the first place, just a little more physically fit than others.
The ball came my way many times afterwards, and I believe I heard ‘Pass to (insert my name here)’ a couple of times. Wow, didn’t know my ‘trustworthiness’ at handling balls and scoring shot up by so much with just one goal. This kind of feels a little superficial, like what I was ranting about earlier, except this does not deal with material wealth but ability to score (which, by the way, is a completely useless ability unless I decide to delve into a sporting career, which I will not).
I missed a goal and the ball never came after that.
Huh, talk about fickle-minded.
The game ended with Celine being carried off quite literally by all fours because she injured herself trying to defend her side. I found out later that she was injured so badly she needed a wheelchair to move about. No bone was broken whatsoever but her ankle swelled up really badly so she couldn’t wear her shoes without further aggravating the injury (hence the wheelchair).
I was told to carry one of the chairs used to the PE room, which I had no idea where it was. As I was making my way there after some nice soul told me it was down the slope and far away (and apparently very smelly too, I reminded myself, since that’s where all the PE equipments came from and the equipments stink), Mr. Ho turned to ShuYing and I and accused us of not playing, to which I retorted with a, “I got touch the ball lor!” Well, excuse my horrible English. I’m usually like that unless writing or trying to speak in a formal setting (like the English orals which I didn’t do quite as well as I would have liked).
The chair didn’t stink as bad as the ball, so I was okay with carrying it. I just didn’t really like that I had to walk that far with this blue thing in my hands (and above my head, because I like carrying things that way). Thankfully I was told to leave the chair outside the PE room, which was a win-win situation for both me and the teacher. No smelly rooms, and someone brought the chair back.
Makes me wonder, why couldn’t the teacher bring it back himself?
Recess was next, and a horrible recess it was too since, among the rush in the morning due to the late awaking, I did not bring my usual triple-decker sandwich and had to purchase some really expensive buns and still not be full. I had a papaya later to try and fill my stomach. Didn’t work.
Chinese lesson was rather okay. I drew a bit, but nothing much, because we were going through a practice paper we did the earlier lesson and I needed to copy down the answers. I learnt quite a bit, although I’m not sure it will make much of a difference in my Chinese grades.
Assembly consisted of a talk by Mrs. Hoo which overshot the time limit and ended up eating into Social Studies. Mr. Lim came late anyway so I guess it didn’t change anything. I don’t remember much from the talk, all I did recall was ‘Not all that can be counted counts’. Heh, I thought it sounded cool, so maybe that was why I remembered it.
Social Studies went on as usual, with a bit of revision here and there and everywhere. The entire lesson was a revision one. I drew during this lesson, filling up the sheet of paper I drew on in Chinese class with the same character and his ‘foster’ daughter who is only three years younger than him.
Math lesson after that was quite a bore. I did get quite some things done, but not a lot. There was a bunch of new worksheets to be done that was given out today and which I dread doing (a lot). But I really do need to work on my radians and geometrical properties of a circle because I just stink at those topics, so the revision material was good, I guess.
I ate lunch with AY and a few of her friends which gathered around the table like salt crystals growing from a seed suspended in a solution of dissolved salt.
Math remedial was okay, but I was a little late since I couldn’t find the classroom. I finished worksheet 4 for geometrical properties of a circle and did some questions about angle properties. I like angle properties. I like angles. The sad thing is, I can’t memorise the names of the proofs.
The bus ride home was uneventful as usual. The walk home, however, is a different thing altogether. I quite enjoyed it, in fact.
It started raining while I was on the bus, so when I got off I whipped out my trusty umbrella, put it over my head and walked out of the bus stop and into the pouring torrent. At first I was bent on keeping my entire body dry, but I soon came to learn that it was a rather futile attempt since the winds were as unpredictable as my grades.
So I focussed on keeping my bag dry and calculator from fizzing out in a beautiful display of bright red sparks. The rain soaked my entire pinafore from the tip to the top. Even my glasses weren’t spared the splatter of tiny raindrops on them. MY GLASSES. They sit right at the top of my nose, not at my feet. If my glasses can get wet, anything can get wet. No, I’m not walking on my hands, if that’s what you’re wondering.
The rain was incredibly heavy, and the gushing waves that curled and hurled in the drains threatened to engulf it entirely. You could see the power and raw force spurring the rolling waves forward, sending them crashing into the stone sides of the drain and trying to break free. The sound was music to my ears, and the sight a feast for the eyes. I adore these things.
The cars that rolled by me splashed water all the way up to my waist. The water felt dirty, but I couldn’t really tell because the pinafore had already turned into a very dark shade of blue by then after soaking up so much rain water.
I was really tempted to throw my umbrella off my head and dance about in the rain since I love this kind of weather, but what held me back was the fact that I had important worksheets in my bag that cannot, ABSOLUTELY CANNOT, get wet. Oh, I would be doomed if I had to photocopy every single one of those…
It was also rather cold, and I got goose bumps and shivered like an intelligent chicken in a slaughter house. I still love the rain. Thank God that the heavy rain was on Friday, if not I wouldn’t know what shoe to wear tomorrow since it probably wouldn’t have dried yet.
Wednesday’s rain was moderately heavy, so my shoes got kind of wet. They weren’t dry by the next day but I still wore them anyway since they weren’t that wet. Thursday’s rain was fairly light in comparison. My shoes didn’t get as wet, so they had dried when this morning rolled by. Today’s rain was on a completely different level.
My shoes turned into sponge on overload mode and with every step I could feel water being squished out of the cloths of the shoe, and my feet could practically swim in them. It was an odd experience, but I have come by it before a few times.
Ah, monsoon periods are beautiful.
Now all I need is a pair of back-up shoes.
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Oh, I don’t think I mentioned this yet.
I PASSED MY PIANO EXAM! So yeah, maybe it was only Grade 5, maybe it was a bare pass (and by bare I really mean it), but that is still a pass, and that still means that after my EYAs are over I can immediately unwrap that tablet waiting for me downstairs and use it right away! Isn’t that exciting! I can’t wait to try it out! How will my art change after that?
Heh, the fine string on which the tablet was hanging from has been cut! The tablet now sits a few laps away; all I need to do now is run to it. The race will end when EYAs end. I wish it was sooner.
