Confessions of a Wallflower

Movie still from a Chinese film called 'Perhaps Love' coming out on dvd Dec 18. This image just sold me. I'm getting it though I've never seen it before- apparently it's like an Asian version of Moulin Rouge and it conveys all aspects of love very well.

Listening to Boys of Summer by Ataris. Every time I hear this, I wish I was in a shiny red convertible with the top down- streaming hair, cloudless skies, endless road.


I feel really depressed right now.
Maybe it's because I was stupid and instead of doing my finals, I stayed up till 3am baking and decorating unhappy gingerbread men with missing limbs and wrapping them and placing them into envelopes which I then drew and wrote a personalized note for each recipient.
And I overslept today and on top of that frozen rain came down yesterday and I had so many problems walking to church while holding an umbrella battling the avenue winds and trying to protect my christmas cards. At church I ended up setting up the welcoming table as well as usher in people for worship and had to maintain traffic flow for our biannual Communion. And then afterwards had to go home to go to a critique at school. So I've been on my feet all day and I've had nothing to eat all day. I'm so tired.
And now I have to start studying Arts of China.

People ask me if I'm excited about Christmas. I can't even look at the future right now because there's so much crap I have to do in the present. Every year since I've been attending Parsons, Christmas doesn't really feel like it means anything because I'm so focused on school I forget all else. Plus by the time Parsons is finished with us for the Fall semester, we're all exhausted, tired, stressed out and sick. Some Christmas.
I havent done any shopping for anyone nor do I know what to get anyone or can be really creative with it because school is just zapping up what creative brain cells I have left.

What's different is that unlike last year in which I was hating all of December and wanting to return home, this year I've really been able to take ownership of the place I live in. I can't believe I'll be going 'home' this Thursday- it seems like summer was just yesterday. What happened?
Oh right, I'm starting to live.
I've finally begun to enjoy New York for what it is- the food and the people. Yes, food and people. I love the freedom that I have the privilege of- I don't have to ask my parents for the car- I can just pop out wherever and whenever without the consent of anyone but myself. And I've really become fond of my apartment for it's location- seriously do not have to wander out of a ten block vicinity. When I say I live in the heart of Manhattan, I really mean I live in the heart of Manhattan. It's better than Union station in Toronto.

So now 'home' is defined by three places: New York, Toronto and Hong Kong. Yes I still call Hong Kong 'home' because I really do love that city despite all the pollution and boy-body girls (haha). Though it may not be as familiar as it once was to me, many of my memories lay in that city waiting to be revisited this Christmas. Thus I am torn with what to do this summer. I want to intern in HK during the Olympics since everyone around the world will be there, I want to go back to Toronto to spend time with friends and family and I want to stay in New York to continue building the seedling relationships I've made over the semester.
I wonder if I'll still love Hong Kong or is it just a memory that I love?
I wonder if all my life I'll be deviating from one home to the next. If home is where the heart is, well home is many places for me for all the people I hold most dear is where I call home. Home was never really a tangible thing- home is so much more than a bunch of bricks and wood stuck together.


The other day my friend and I were eating 'ja jeung mien' in K-town- ja jeung mien being the fried noodles with sauce and diced onions and beef cubes- made by Chinese tailored for Koreans. Anyway, she gave me this analogy and accompanying conversation,

"There was once a man who said he would marry any girl who could eat a whole bowl of ja jeung mien without getting any of the sauce on her lips. Many girls tried but they couldn't do it. One day he had noodles with this one girl who got it all over her face. He wiped off the sauce off her face and married her."

"So what's the moral of the story?"
"That you don't always know what you want," That's Henry Cloud for ya. XD
"So why is it that you want what you don't want and you don't want what you want?"
"I don't know."

And we continued eating our noodles.



That night my friend decided to take me to a club.
I've never had girls rip apart the way I dress. Ever.
One was even eager to do it- I could sense a bit of malice in all that she criticized about me for since my 'knowledge' was in that of feminine/maniacal/costume dress while she in the more urban/normal/cliche/club stuff. She seemed like she wanted to show me how much she knew about club attire and would take pleasure in the fact that I was totally ignorant of it all.
It's not that I'm hurt by their comments as I am intrigued by the fact that back when I hardly ever socialized, I dressed for myself only- world of one. And now somehow in having to 'cross worlds' I'd have to alter my change of dress?
Apparently now, I have to get nicer boots, shorts that aren't granny shorts and... something else which I can't remember. Probably a top.
None of it feels very me. I felt very 'un Sam' that night.

The club itself was an interesting experience. A little too hyper sexualized to the point it seems to easy to get what you want.
On the other hand, that night, I relived some old wounds of the past. I was made fun of in Grade five by my friends who criticized how I danced since we were doing some performance to 'Get Down' by BSB. And they all ganged up on me to tell me how I was doing the moves wrong- ever since then I never danced (therefore I don't know how to either- unless you call spasms as 'dance'). So I stood awkwardly while my friends danced that night. As much as they tried to make me dance, I refused to. I was torn. On one hand I did want to try but experiences of the past stopped me from doing so. On the other hand, I was wondering why I was so caught up in something that happened....ten years ago??? I don't know- but I can't. I feel like if I didn't dance for those ten years- I first, don't know how to and if I did try, I don't want people to laugh at me. At the same time, I didn't want my friends to think that I wasn't having a good time since I wasn't dancing. I didn't dance not because of them but because of things that were beyond them.
I don't know, I seriously have to get over this.
Why are a bunch of grade five kids dictating this sliver of my life?

My friend and I revisited the bar again, calling the two guys we met the first time we went together to tell them that we were going there and they could swing by if they wanted to. We didn't expect them to but the bar was booming with groups of people just hanging out, talking and laughing. My friend and I ended up along the hallway at a table rather than at the bar counter and had some rather disappointing watermelon soju (not enough pulp). Her coworker joins us with some muscley gym guy who was quite... stubby. lol Anyway halfway through I became quite glazed over because the gym guy was kinda boring- at least he would never turn to address me despite my tries to talk and my friend's coworker ended up talking to other guys.
And then suddenly some guy makes an enthusiastic 'hello!'- initially I didn't recognize him but realized it was one of the guys that we met the first time- but this one I didn't get a chance to talk to the first time since his friend who got my friend's number was sitting between us and it was difficult to talk with so many people around. We greet both of them saying how surprised we were that they actually showed up. I didn't realize how tall one of the guys was while the other one was severely short.
Anyway, the coworker and gym guy come back with more drinks including Baileys on the rocks for me (a steve recommendation... I actually tried it at his house hahahaha) and we add in more chairs at this tiny table.
I ended up spending the entire time talking to this one guy- the one who I didnt get a chance to talk to last time. He's an interesting character- Filipino guy who worked as an investment banker making $100,000 a year and decided that it was a stupid job and quit to try acting. We share a mutual interest in traveling and ended up talking a lot about different places we've visited- I asked him what his favourite city and country was- he had too much of a hard time trying to figure them out, but decided Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia was his favourite, as for country, he had no answer to. He told me about his poetic experiences in Cambodia and I told him why Hong Kong subways rock.
Then my friend, the two guys and I ended up talking about our retarded IDC 'Designing Culture' class and explained to them our final projects in which the Filipino guy seem to get so into, I asked him if he was ridiculing me.
My friend (I should honestly give her a name) started glazing over due to lack of sleep so we told them we had to leave despite their exclamations that it was so early (2am??).
And we got up and left.
I told him that he didn't answer my question and to tell me what his favourite country was the next time we meet.


As soon as we exited the bar, my friend exclaims, "Why didn't he get your number???"
I told her I'm not in control of that- not my problem if he doesn't. I told her that I was tired if asking and if people want it, they can ask and I'll give but I'm not asking anymore. If he asked that night, I would have given him my number but because he didn't too bad. Not my loss.
"But you guys talked one on one for sooo long! He had plenty of chances to ask!"
Yeah well I already was quite open in our conversation so I didn't do anything wrong.

In the end, women were designed to be pursued and to be lead by men. The more I talk to girls in relationships, the more I realize this. Although they put up a front of independence, they just want to be 'ruled' over and lead.
Sometimes I wonder if it's worse to be the guy or the girl. Although the girl makes it blatantly obvious that she's interested, she cannot do the initiating- therefore she must remain on that side of the boundary while the guy, though he has to have the courage to ask and perhaps be rejected, can be relatively active and can do something to change the circumstance while the girl can only drop hints.
I'd make a good man. LOL. I hate waiting, I like to be active.

He messaged me first today, FINALLY.
-To thank me for my Christmas card which consisted of the envelope and sad gingerbread man. When I gave it to him he said he'd read the message right there and then and to make it more awkward, started reading it aloud until I told him to stop. We talked for a bit and then I gave him my well wishes and said goodbye for a month.

Upon looking at my encounters the past semester, I've realized that despite my maturity and depth in certain matters of life, my view on dating and guys is extremely shallow. And I guess that's because I haven't experienced anything to understand and since I haven't experienced, the maturity level in this sector is really young. I still think like a visual person despite my short list of things required in a husband. But in dating, I really am visually driven and I know it sounds really lame and shallow to think this way which is why I need to start getting to know more guys to change how I think.
Despite the fact that I'm intimidated by masculine tall guys (because I'm the one usually looking down on people), I really am attracted to those who are taller than me. Perhaps it's because I still have that childish way of thinking of the Disney prince who is like 6' and the skinny princess who's about a head shorter than him and could gaze up at him while he envelopes her in his arms. Yeah, as you can see, I have a really twisted, romanticized view on physically what a couple should look like because I've never had any experiences in reality.
Yet if you asked me what attracts me about him, I would have said his looks and the Filipino guy because he's tall.

Therefore I need to start dating to make sure this part of my life is as mature as the rest of it. I'm really 'deep' in some areas of my life while the others are just as immature as a kindergarten.

Okay my roomie just msged me from her bf's place asking what kind of guys I like while I was writing this post. It's scary that we are always on the same wavelength despite being a hundred blocks from each other.