tell me about it

Let me tell you a story; a true story, in fact. First, I’ll introduce the characters.

We have this student in our year who shall henceforth be known as The Indian Feminist. This precious girl, who is of South Indian origin I believe, is well known as being one who is completely unafraid to stand up for feminism and Indian rights. She’s liberated and strong-minded and hates it, absolutely hates it when people discriminate against Indians or females. She’s been known to be utterly fearless about voicing her views and can get rather inflamed when people rub her the wrong way.

Then we have this lecturer, who hasn’t demonstrated that she has much between her ears. She once accused the entire lecture hall of not being very intelligent, at which point we all burst into incredulous laughter because we all felt the same way about her. People blatantly snore through her lectures, and people miss them because we don’t learn anything from them.

So. Today. During a lecture that I did not attend (1. sick, 2. don’t like her lectures anyway), she decided to make a few extremely stupid comments.

Oh, do we have any Indians here (scans the audience), oh thank god, none.

“…like Indians have the habit of shaking their heads from side to side when they agree with something. Do we do that? No right?” she says cheerfully.

“Luckily we are not Indians,” The Lecturer continues, “Oh, do we have any Indians here? Oh thank god, none.”

Horrified silence from the lecture hall.

The Indian Feminist stands up and directs a chilly glare at The Lecturer. “Just what do you mean by that?” she demands.

The Lecturer still doesn’t see what she’s done wrong. “Yeah what,” she says. “There are studies which show that Indians are always misunderstood because of that.”

Indian Feminist retorts, “WHAT studies are you talking about?!”

The Lecturer: “Really, really. Go ask your mother. I’m sure she knows.”

Everyone in the lecture hall is gasping in shock, or beating their heads on the tables. No one can believe The Lecturer’s utter stupidity. I’m not sure what made The Indian Feminist not pursue the subject any further, but that’s all I know of the story. I heard that the tutor for the same subject, who was also present in the lecture and was also completely horrified, had to go placate Her and Her kakis afterwards. Well, that’s the version of the story I heard, anyway.

I cannot believe how bloody brainless and stupid and utterly tactless The Lecturer is. Her idiocy has placed everyone firmly on the Indian Feminist’s side. It’s really stupid of a lecturer to be so blatantly racist and tactless in front of an entire lecture group.

She’s completely lost all credibility by now. What a bitch.

Someone says I am chio-er than Emma Watson:

I’m so touched.

What a miserable day.

I’ve been having a stomach-ache since last night. At first I thought it was gastric, but I’d had something to eat already. So I went to sleep, hoping that a good night’s rest would allow me to wake up the next morning ache-free. Didn’t work.

At about six in the morning I woke up with the pain hitting me every few minutes. Everytime I tried to get back to sleep, it’d hurt again. And it isn’t cramps. Near eight in the morning, the thunderstorm started really getting on my nerves. The thunder was sudden, and very very loud. Seeing how thunder used to be my one fear when I was a child (though I quickly grew out of it), I wasn’t very happy about how I couldn’t get to sleep. Every other minute there was a BANG CRASH of thunder, followed by intense muscle spasm.

By 10.30am when I was supposed to go for project discussion, I’d given up on the idea of getting out of bed. Apologized to Max. Eventually I finally managed to get to sleep, waking up at 3.30pm.

Xiaobin calls and asks in horror if we’ve missed the PI talk. DAMN it. I think we did.

ROAR.

Update: I later tried to put my curtains up. Forgetting that my fan was on and not realizing it was dangerously close to me, I accidentally shoved my finger into the fan’s blades, which were rotating at full speed. I now have a swollen, bruised finger that looks like it was attacked by a baby vampire. Mweh.

Women have to spend so much time and money on our hair. It’s ridiculous. Our whole lives seem to be devoted to removing and grooming all the hair on our bodies, from head to toes.

Plucking eyebrows - $10 to $15
Gillette Venus shaver - $15
Brazilian Waxing - $40 to $50
Laser Hair Removal
- Underarm @ $100 per session
- Lower Leg, Forearm @ $400 per session
- Bikini Line @ $300 to $400 per session
- Upper Lips @ $60 to $80 per session
Epilator - $70 to $100
Depilatory Creams - $5 to $20
Haircuts - $20 t0 $100
Hair dyeing - $50 to $300
Treatments, Rebonding, etc - $50 to $400
Constantly worrying about regrowth - Priceless

Doesn’t it really annoy you when your Brazilian grows out? It’s like an army of red ants crawling around your groin, and you just keep crossing and uncrossing your legs and hope to God that you don’t give in to the urge to reach into your undies and scratch. Or when your leg or arm hair starts growing out and you try desperately not to accidentally brush up against someone and poke them half to death.

Or when those tiny hairs from your eyebrows grow out of shape (or stop growing altogether) because you’ve been overenthusiastic with tweezers and eyebrow razors and your eyebrows take on a life of their own (grrroowr, oh my God, what’s that on your face).

And men just grow hair all over their freaking bodies and declare that it makes them manly. I swear it’s just another way to subjugate women and put us through unnecessary hell making us spend time money and effort looking good for them.

I’ll admit. Body hair on women is totally unsightly. But is it a social construct? Maybe Neanderthals thought female armpit hair is totally sexy.

What role does armpit hair play anyway? It’s like the most pointless hair on the body. Eyebrows too. And moustaches. What does all this hair DO??

Dateline does NOT mean deadline.

Call yourself a literary society. Don’t you know the difference between a dateline and a deadline?!

Daddy forked out $300 for my new IC today. I feel rather horribly guilty. He didn’t even scold or chastise one bit, just let out a little sigh and poked me in the side, saying “Three hundred dollars!” That’s me. Guilty as sin of wasting Dad’s money. Sigh. I’d have felt better if he’d scolded just a bit. Double sigh.

It’s like they’re punishing me for having my wallet stolen for the second time. I pay three times the original price, and I have to wait three times the original waiting time. Three months before I can get my IC. And I’d forgotten to bring my baptism cert, so I couldn’t add in the ‘Danielle’ in my name. Roar. What a waste. When Bing becomes a lawyer I shall ask her to help me draw up the deed poll to change my name officially to the dialect one. Then I’ll fork out $60 to change the IC particulars. Double Roar.

I’m not carrying my IC around anymore. Going to color photocopy it and laminate it and stick that in my wallet.

We might be going to Chiangmai in December, after Israel. Joy! Much joy! I absolutely love love love Thailand. I shall bring Mom to have a good massage. Heh. Then maybe I can get a fake pair of Madrids, because I don’t think I look good enough in a pair of Madrids to get the real Birkenstocks. Man. I can’t wait to shop.

And I need a frickin’ job.

“…and with increased prosperity Mike Darcy bought his wife jewellery. There was an emerald pendant, there were diamonds. Nobody in Shancarrig had ever known such extravagance. Quite unsuitable, Richard’s Aunt Ethel had said, shaking her head about it.

Richard agreed from the bottom of his heart.

To his surprise young Niall had the opposite view.

“What do people work for if it isn’t to get themselves what they want?” he asked.

“I hope you wouldn’t throw your money away on emeralds for Gloria Darcy and her like,” his father said dismissively.

These days Niall answered back. “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘her like’, but if I loved someone and I earned my money lawfully I would feel very justified in spending it on presents for her.”

Suddenly the room was silent and drab. Aunt Ethel looked at her son in some surprise. On her cardigan there was no jewellery; there never had been any except the engagement ring, wedding ring, and a good watch. Perhaps life might have been better if Bill Hayes had visited a shop and looked at jewels.”

~Maeve Binchy ‘The Copper Beech’

I think PMS is upon me.

I’m feeling horribly unsettled, very moody, very grumpy, and with the nagging feeling that life is becoming more and more unsatisfactory as time passes. I couldn’t feel more unmotivated if I tried (ha), and I’m fighting the urge to tuck myself into bed and cry for no reason whatsoever. Feel like there’s absolutely no point in doing anything. I’m horribly bored and lembek and very very grouchy.

I hate hormones. I hate my period, and I hate feeling like a puddle of goo.

And I hate mood swings, and I hate water retention, and I hate cramps, and I hate blood. I hate pads I hate tampons I hate panty liners.

I want to destroy something. I want to throw something at the walls, I want to throw myself out the window. I hate feeling like I hate the world. I hate everything.

This is not a good time to get me angry.

Max fell asleep for just about 90% of the movie. I kid you not. :D

We were originally supposed to go clubbing but that fell through. Blah. Was looking forward to a nice night of free flow and dance beats and holding Xiaobin’s head while she puked up the free drinks :D Okay, I’m kidding. But it would have been fun to go to Double O. Maybe next week; Camel’s lecture only starts at 3.30pm on Thursdays.

So the three of us ended up at Jurong Point watching ‘The Wedding Crashers’.

Yeah, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson are a hoot, I suppose, and the lines were rather amusing. But the funnier bits were mostly the slapstick ones. Isla Fisher as Gloria Cleary stole the show, really, with her virgin slash psycho dominatrix act. And Rachel McAdams is simply gorgeous. Love the hair :/

For a movie, 6 out of 10. For a brainless romantic comedy starring Vince and Owen, 8 out of 10. Heh. Concessions must be made.

Quotable quotes:

John: You look beat. Soft mattress?
Jeremy: Soft mattress? Yeah, it could have been the soft mattress. Or the midnight rape. Or the nude gay art show that took place in my room last night. One of those three probably contributed to the lack of sleep.

:D

Finally:
John: True love is your soul’s recognition of its counterpoint in another.

Now that’s beautiful.