Schedule-less Summer// Fashion as Means to Men vs. Creativity

The worst is over now and we can breathe again. -Broken, Amy Lee & Seether

I took this picture last week on my lone walk in Mill Pond. More to come from this 'series'.

When I was listening to this song, I was in the middle of it all and now I really think I've just been able to let go.

So last week I was questionning what the heck I was supposed to do with the rest of my summer. So God answered with:
-Hanging around York U and watching HP4 with Andrew
-Robyn and Joseph @ Markville Mall in our attempts to find Converse shoes for our 11 year old cousin, dinner at Firefly and bubble tea
-Japanese
-Meeting up with just Robyn at Go For Tea :)
-Meeting with another cousin to catch up with our lives
-Unionville Downtown with Vanessa and hanging out and having dinner at her place with a couple others
-Bible study in the chosen group of 8 (minus 2 :P)
-Bubble tea with Vanessa and Julia (I wouldn't be surprised if the people at Go For Tea knew my face... I've been there four times in two weeks)
-Dim sum with grandparents and Robyn, Pirates of the Caribbean3 and Congee Wong
-More Japanese.

It's been all somewhat of a blur- I've been just nodding my head to everything. Right now God is opening and closing many doors relational wise- it kind of makes me wish I had put more effort earlier on because now people are coming and leaving but what can you do but stick your foot in the door and hope it opens up again later on in life?
You know what, in a way, I'm scared. Scared I'll lose and scared of being open. In our Bible study the question of how fear hinders us from loving surfaced. I never said it, but for me, it's being vulnerable to people because when I'm vulnerable, I become attached and being attached tires me out because I know there will be a time where I have to 'cut' myself free.
Love is like velcro.
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Someone said out of the blue the other day, "Sam, your boyfriend- when you get one- will be amazing... because you're such an amazing person and he will be so lucky to get you. Since we were friends, I've always looked up to you." I was taken aback because I wasn't really anticipating such a statement/compliment. Thanks. Although I don't know if that's going to be fulfilled but thanks. :)

I knew it was coming. At dimsum today. I knew my grandmother, after hearing the good news of my dear cousin, that she would turn to me and say in Cantonese, "Samantha, when are you going to find a date? Fai dee la."
I retorted by saying "au deem fai dee che?" Beyond that, I knew my grandmother meant it kindly and I didn't take it as some insult yet the devil on my shoulder is nagging at me and asking me why the heck I don't have that 'someone' and makes me want to blame myself for whatever reason be it looks or personality or character that I'm not perceived as 'attractive' by guys in that sense.
It's not like I can make relationships go faster- I just let them take their course. Especially now that I know my time is limited, I'm scrambling to just get out there and catch up with people from the past and get to know people of the present. So I've taken a 'screw it' mentality- either you can perceive me as attractive/mediocre/ugly, but there's not much I can do about it but continue on doing whatever. And right now, I can say that I'm a little too busy with friendships in general to really sit down and mull things over. Let's just say I've bit more than I can chew so I'm trying to digest it as fast as I can to get more out of it.
Ok, my mom just came in to lecture me about how I have no real plans for this summer and that I'm just going along with whatever comes my way. Honestly, I don't want plans. What's so great about plans? Yeah sure, they can keep you in line with your goals but my goals this summer is just to spend time with people. Yet to her it seems like an effortless thing: she thinks that I should find a pattern and reschedule sewing lessons since I bought so much expensive fabric (and I will but I havent found a particular pattern worthy of $120 fabric yet!) and how I should take my Japanese more seriously- but that's all that's been buzzing in my head lately. You know what, even when I get out of the shower, I write the Hirigana alphabet on the steamed up mirror and when I go to the grocery store, I stand around the snack aisle and pick up a box of Pocky or wasabi beans and try to decipher the characters on the packaging. And at night I'm watching Japanese dramas and pausing it whenever they pop up the phrases in Hirigana and try to translate it all. It's pissing me off that people think I'm not trying when I am. Sorry I'm no linguistic genius, I never claimed to be one, and yes my memory runs long term and not short term so it takes me longer to absorb things. Deal with it.
I want to live day by day because life is unpredictable. I don't want to set schedules for my summers- there's plenty of time for that during the school year. If schedules is a way of 'controlling' time- well then- I don't want that. Sorry to be so cliche, but if I died at the end of this summer, I would not be laying in a hospital bed thinking why I didn't study Japanese harder or why I didn't finish that garment I was sewing, but of all the relationships I've been building.
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This following is a rambling on fashion and my self so you don't have to read it... it sounds narcisstic but I just needed to say it somewhere:

"Why are you wearing suspenders?"
"That's... interesting."
"I don't get it."
"A tutu..."
These are the random comments I get from people. You know what- I think people often are mislead to think that us fashion students are snobs when in reality, it's their ignorance that makes us look stuck up. The last one I heard by two men outside of a gym in New York while I was running back to the restaurant where I was having dinner with my roommate. In fact it wasn't a tutu which is usually made of stiff tulle and stands horizontally from the wearer, but a petticoat- an underlayer worn by women in the past to create volume but now regarded as outerwear; it's just those things that make me scoff at people because they are the ones who make judgments knowing little about culture and history.

Two days ago I was at Spellbound, that really crazy looking hair salon in FMP because my Chinese friend, who looks Filipino, was inquiring about a receptionish job. At the end of it all the guy/manager with his crazy blonde hair all over the place who was trying to test her Canto skills by asking her a series of work related questions, remarked that my friend didn't look Canto. And pointed at our other friend who is white/filipino asking her if she was canto and she said no. He pointed at me and I asked me to which I said I was chinese. I asked why he didn't think I was chinese. He gave me this quizzical look and said I just didn't look Chinese while pointing at my outfit and concluded that I was too 'fashionable' to look Chinese.
The funny thing is is that the clothes at FMP and P Mall appeal more to me than the typical Caucasian malls since the former tends to be funkier although sadly I'm mutant Chinese who cannot fit into the boyish sizes they offer.

Haha I'm not sure how to say this but you know how some girls use their body to attract guys? The thought has come across my mind- I can't really think like a guy but I imagine as long as you show a little leg, arms, cleavage or whatnot, it would pretty much get their attention (and I reiterate- I'm not a guy so I don't really understand the allure of the female figure to their extent). Yet this is where I come into 'conflict': what I think is lovely, beautiful, stylish and appealing is probably the total opposite of what most people perceive to be attractive. To dress to appeal to the male audience would be like wearing a denim mini skirt and a tank top which all I can say is bleh.
My creative outlet really comes from clothing the body. And because what I see on the market, in mass produced stores and what people wear around the city, I can only deviate away from the norm and try to do something different hence why I'm often found at P Mall, Zellers (yes you heard me) and Value Village- places you either don't perceive as being trendy or cool. Because people see little possibility, I try to find possibilities in what they perceive as impossible.
If I ever went out with an AE tank top with a pair of sweats, I don't know.. I wouldn't feel myself. I'm not saying I'd close off that combination entirely but right now it doesn't feel very 'Sam'. At the surprise party, I wasn't planning on seeing people I knew so I decided that day to experiment and have fun with the most random things ever: a belted t shirt dress with leggings with a long grey hoodie with cap sleeves. Since it was cold that day, I slid legwarmers on my arms with one hand in a striped fingerless mitten. To say the least, I was a little embarrassed when I walked in to so many people in my house looking like that.

I guess all I can say is that my style tends to be more theatrical with historical references- and I know a lot of people don't really understand it and find it a little odd whereas in my perception, see it as something really normal. I feel like I'm so far under, I don't even realize how odd it must seem to people. People have asked me why I wear a belt around the waist- to me it's the most normal thing ever but I've kind of realized that most people wear it at the hips. I guess it harkens back to the 18th century and the 50's style in which everything was nipped at the waist to emphasize the hourglass silhouette. Iono, it's something I've always been attracted to and I know it works because the eye immediately is drawn to the center to which the belt would be a focal point. If you've studied it like I have via magazines and history, you'd understand that what you see goes back into the past.

In the end, I don't think I could ever please the male audience because it requires me to forsake that creative outlet I most enjoy fleshing out for my own pure pleasure. It's also a reason why I kind of don't want to marry/date because I already feel a little sorry for whoever he is to have to deal/cope with me. But hey, I am just hoping one day someone would find it attractive.
So sometimes I can't help but get smug when I see people 'copy' me- when they were the ones who initially scorned the idea a year ago... and because it became 'in', they decide to give it a try. Like a suspender dress or the trapeze silhouette or the dress shirt which I gave a shot at last year and came in this year. So what people see as being a 'New Yorker, fashion snob', I only perceive those people being too closed minded to different styles and views yet follow once it becomes trendy. So I scoff. Honestly, be creative and do your own thing. Why worry if people think the colour is too strong or if the dress makes you look like a doll? It's clothes, have fun.

I don't need compliments- but if you have one, it's nice. But I don't need ones out of obligation. I'd rather you stay silent.