Okay

My handwriting's changing.

These days I'm making conscious effect to cross my t's with a horizontal stroke instead of a downstroke. Just this. But it affects the other characters in subliminal ways, slight adjustments that you can't make out individually, but when viewed as a word or sentence or phrase becomes quite obvious. My words are certainly bigger, if that's any possible. I can't say if the difference is good or bad, the same way you can't like or dislike your belly button, it's just there. But somehow, my words are sharper. Perhaps more illegible, or as I like to call it, scripty. More final.

Some people tell me I have nice handwriting for a guy - I get flattered. But when people tell me they dislike my handwriting, I get offended. So you can say I'm quite proud of how I write. Thankfully, for my ego, more people like my handwriting than those who don't. Or perhaps people are just polite.

I don't know why I decided to cross my t's this way. I didn't always have good handwriting, you know. When I was in primary 3 or 4 I had childish handwriting. I think most guys stick with that for the rest of their lives. But something in my 10 year old brain wanted more. So I started staring at other people's handwritings. And there was a particular boy's which I liked, his f's with a back hook and l's with a loop, like how the primary school textbooks print the 'litre' sign. Thus my imitation began.

Over a few years I kept a conscious check whenever I wrote. I wasn't obsessed, but I wasn't forgetful either. Not about these things. Like Lucille in Housekeeping I was quite determined to improve myself - a boy who spoke Mandarin at home and halting English in school and wanted desperately to be good at something. So when I was P6 my handwriting was getting admired irregularly, but regular enough for me. The boy whose handwriting I copied was also in my P6 class, but by this time mine looked nothing like his. When I told my classmates the story behind Jiasheng's font, no one would believe me, especially not him.

What I actually had in mind for this post was typical of a "new year new beginning" sentimental piece, with some reflections from the past year. I did have genuinely new epiphanies about my personal development. It's surprising how really doing nothing (not thinking about doing nothing) enriches your inner world. Somewhere between all the queer movies, quirky fiction, gym-and-swim sessions, sleeping in, and occasionally doing work, some things unclenched in me. I was no longer that bitter. Maybe still a little bitter, but more pH7 than pH14. And it felt okay to feel.

It mostly comes in an open letter:

***

Dear you know who you are,

I have resented you. Sometimes, hated. For different reasons maybe: you being irresponsible, uncaring, treacherous, indifferent, or you plain broke my heart. And I blamed you, very much, and put all the distance I could muster between us so I couldn't expect anything from you anymore, neither hurt nor love.

But what I now know is that even if I judge you, it is not me who makes the final decision, if there is a final decision. Maybe you have acted kindly to others, or have been selfless. Or maybe you have done far more terrible things to other people than you have to me. But I wouldn't know. Where I have blamed you, others may have sung praises. Where you let me down, you may have saved another. The thing is, I can never say if you are a good person, or even a bad person. So you're not forgiven, and I don't forget, but I don't hate you anymore.

The final important bit of my reflections is this: that people come and go, they befriend or hurt you, but my life is mine and I am only responsible for my life. Funny quote that stays in my head:

Proctor: [With the cry of his whole soul] Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!

(from The Crucible, Arther Miller)

And so maybe the only protagonist and antagonist in my story is myself. The decisions I have made in my life determines who I will become. And many times in a day, thinking back, I am so very grateful that I have not chosen some other way, becoming someone who I cannot live as. And I respect myself for the ones I did choose. This road may be hard, but I'm alive and I'm still the protagonist.

Likewise, you have your own story, in which I may be a villain or a missed train. I hope yours is a good story.

With goodwill,
Jiasheng

***

And now for the boring stuff: School has started, and I am not pleased.

Homework (plus due holiday work) is already doing their pile-and-stress circus act, and I am a juggler. But in some sadistic way it's good to be back.

Recently (i.e. yesterday) though, I've been feeling lousy again. I told myself to be less grouchy but as I've predicted, depression doesn't knock when it comes. Because of some (probably permanent) changes in the household, I've been coming to an empty home after school every day, and when I lie in bed in the evening, that's when loneliness hits me like a brick. Not that I actually know how that feels like, getting hit by a brick, but all I can do is squeeze myself into a ball and breathe until it goes away. Then I get up, do some homework, eat some chocolate and maybe watch some 30 Rock.

Times like these, I scroll through my address book on my phone, then scold myself for being so needy, and never text anyone. I tried to remember the last time I had a real hug - not the loose awkward ones that I do with the sisterhood, but the pound-on-chest-breathless type, the one Tom Cruise gave to his son after they reunited in War of the Worlds, the type where you're glad for the glue between your skin and theirs - it's a long time ago. Times like these, I am a hug addict with his supply cut off. I've gone cold turkey long ago but you know what they say, you can't quit hugs.

In other news, I'm mostly stressed out for school, specifically the lit notes that Jeffrey has ordered. I lent Tianyu my WSS notes and I can't find it, so it's most probably still with him, and I can't make WSS notes. I texted Jeffrey today telling her I can't submit it to her by 12, and the sms conversation dragged on, with me trying to explain how I would rather not rush out note-making, and she half-scolding me. God I hate texting her. It always starts with her being vaguely intimidating and ends with her being amiable and telling me to relax and not be so jaded/uptight/defensive etc. I have enough drama in my life.

In other-other news, Keith gave me a souvenir from Japan, and when I asked what was it, he said I could read it myself. It was in Japanese and I read it syllable-by-syllable. "Wasabi shitake tea" was what it said. So today I went home and made myself some wasabi shitake tea, and by hammer of Thor it was awful. I should have been careful with a product named like that, but I can't really blame anyone - it was really wasabi-and-mushroom-flavoured tea. Some things go together, and some don't. Wasabi and mushroom don't. Wasabi and mushroom in liquid form goes beyond don't. The tea was actually salty. So now I have 23 packs left of this stuff. How now brown cow?

(And Keith, if you read this blog, I'm very sorry.)

Alright, I think that's enough updating for now. I really do have a lot of work. Reader: Go well.