Tuesday, November 28, 2006

The Sad Ping Pong Queen

hi all!


My circle of colleagues typically end the week of work by booking the office table-tennis er...table to have some ping-pong session. Being naturally bad at anything resembling sports, I was the one they kept pushing to 'play more play more!'. This is really what I call a great crowd, mindful of newcomers and made sure they feel welcome. That, or they just wanna watch me run all over the place trying to catch their whirling pink lightnings.

It was here that I got to experience most of my colleagues’ fantastic, even operatic moves on the ping pong table. Watching them play, you can almost imagine the Chinese fan whipping out and all the ‘fei-piaos’ at the ready…..

During another one of colleague G’s moves that prompt me to hallucinate flowing scarves ala Zhang Zhiyi in House of Daggers and had me running all corners of the rooms, spraining my back to pick up the balls, I had to ask..


‘Wah, G. Who teach you your ping pong skills? So fast….’


‘Heh. I learn from the best! My ex-bf taught me one.’


‘He must have been very good at it.’ *pant pant* Another hurtling ball missed me by inches.


‘Yup, he is. But I improve very fast becos of the way he teaches me.’


‘Like how? Video-taping and showing you your mistakes?’ I was thinking about how a swim-coach normally deals with his trainees.


‘Nope, even simpler.’ And looking at me in the eye without any inflection at all, she replied, ‘He used me as a target.’


At my face of incredulity, she elaborated, ‘He said the best way to force me to learn is to aim all his ping pong balls at me hard, so I’ll be extremely compelled to catch them before they hit me.’


I wondered if by her frankness, she was testing or judging me on the type of response to give. So I went for another question.



‘Did it hurt?’


A pause. ‘But of course....’


And I wondered if her answer had a deeper meaning than it was intended.


We let the pink ball move back and forth across the table a while longer in silence.




Then I said, ‘I’m glad he’s your ex, then.’




We looked each other fully in the eye again before hers slid away. I had been accessed and found wanting. She probably got a lot of similar responses like these which she did not agree with.


‘At least he stayed with me for 7 yrs. I wondered how he could have done that, you know.’ Defensive stance.


‘And why not?’ Perhaps she had been a difficult GF?


‘Well, I used to look like this.’ She took out her ID pass and showed me her photo.


In there was a picture taken only 2 yrs ago when she first joined up.

It showed a gal who has, frankly, a very rotund face. It was round like a moon, with cheeks you can squeeze and jiggle.


What a complete change to her present state. She now looks healthily built and toned.

Now, I became more puzzled, and something close to anger surfaced. We stopped the game (after I lost all 3 rounds) and I pressed, ‘What did that have to do with him staying by your side for 7 years?’


‘Don’t you think there’s something admirable about him wanting to be with such an obese gal for 7 long years?’


There was an inner light in her eyes when she said it, obviously for the ex-bf who was courageous, brave and invincible for daring to go against convention to hang out with a plump gal for so long. She had forgotten the blue-blacks she had taken from his training. I bet she must have been thinking he was very noble for even taking time out to train her in his favourite sport.


I felt sorry for her. Right now, I would say that she looked great. She isn’t exactly thin, but hey, she’s got curves rather than angles where curves ought to be. She dresses well and walks well and does her job with great pride. She’s very well-educated too. In fact, her academic qualifications are much higher than his, which prompt me to wonder if he didn’t have a streak of malevolence because of this.


But that’s the thing. I always thought that education can increase a person’s self-worth. If you know more facts about the world, feel good that you can do many things, have pride in your responsibilities and abilities to carry them out, shouldn’t that make you feel less indispensable in Life than others who are less educated and feel less in control?


But for G, no matter how well she works or looks, she’ll always see a worthless fat person in the mirror that she despises. I contend that her self-worth wasn’t there because she did not love herself very much. And funnily, that got me really pissed.


I was angry because the world seem made for the bold and the beautiful. Skinny twigs with perfect hair and teeth. Never mind they weren’t very useful in anything else but looking pretty. They earned the equivalent of my annual salary a day just by walking, a skill we all learnt when we were 3 yrs old. We fawn on them, we want to be like them, we want to live their lives and just for an instant, G and all who are like her, wanted to experience that kind of fixated attention that men gave to them.


And people like G, smart, funny, kind and plays a mean game of ping-pong, gets sidelined into thinking she should be grateful for any kind of attention bestowed on her. I later found out that she has been that type of gf found only in romantic MTVs, where the gal does stuff like make soup, cakes, cookies and wrap them up nicely to give her man. She routinely treats him to candle-lit dinners and gives him wake-up calls. That fucker should be grateful that someone would even give him the time of day, much less someone like her.


Sad to say, her current squeeze also seemed destined to be shaped from the same same cookie-cutter. He has tried to dump her once already, citing that his diploma-holding personality makes him feel inferior to her honours background. Of cos, she begged him to come back, which he did. When I heard about it, I had a feeling it’ll end up the same way again.


When you don’t love yourself, how can anyone love you? Your whole being relies on self-love to project a certain image to the world. If the world sees you as inferior as you see yourself, you’ll agree with it. But the world got its first impression of you from you. It’s all a vicious cycle.


OK, I’m rambling, I know. I’m still mad also. After I argued with her, she started apologizing profusely. I wanted her to stand up for herself and yet, I don’t want her to stand up for herself on views like these.


I don’t know what I want. She confuses me.


Because when I look in the mirror, sometimes another person stares back at me.


Out,

AKK

Friday, November 24, 2006

Getup, Get out and Move on!

Hi all!


Long time no write! today, blogging is a like a breath of fresh air from recent events, which I am happy to say, are tuning down and slowing up. Of cos, coming back out of it requires some time, so as of today, still nothing funny to write except for one small issue.


which will be placed at the bottom.

force you to read what i saying next....ahem...

To my happiness, I have found some ways to combat feelings of lowness. this may not apply to you guys, but it works for me.

So I've decided to write it here, so I don't forget. If you find this helpful, well, I'd like a cup of Kopi please.


Recently, have been told by a fren that some bloggers are consistently depressed about Life and he wonders why. On the basis of research, I also kapohed and had a look into one of which he described.


5 mins into reading, I had the gist of X's life. She's young, she loves good food and pubbing, she's living with her parents. She posts many pics of herself in alluring poses, low necklines and half-exposed breasts. She takes pics in which she thinks are reflective /thinking poses....

Do you know inside every fat nice person is a skinny mean person thinking bad thoughts that get censured by said fat nice person before it's being let out?


Just for looking at those pics, Mini-me didn't just think bad thoughts, she almost knocked my teeth out to get them said.


X's depression is that, in addition to being broke all the time, she is also unemployed. There's a whinging quality about her that seems to impress others that she is a victim of an affluent society, denied her dream of becoming rich by doing nothing and living off frens, sees her life as a serial drama steeped with fairy tale, waiting for someone to see beyond her brittleness into her soft warm insides.

And sweep her off her feet, preferably with cash.


OK. So I dun like X and her ideas. X is equivalent to Life's Styrofoam board.


Snaps easily, drifts with the currents, filled with air.


Compared to a lot of other fellow hardworking citizens trying to make ends meet, her lazy griping persona is hard to stomach. She's unemployed by choice and gets by doing small part-time stints. By her lifestyle, I guess she spents every penny she earns. She certainly visits more restaurants, KTV, pubs in a week than I go a month.


I remembered I was resigned by the GST hike, afterall, the gov't already warned us that the hikes are going to kick in within 3-5 yrs. I also understood, in terms of economy, the hikes are to tax material spending to spread the money back to the needy. While I'm skeptical this works, other ways would too generalised.


So while I'm silently whining a bit that I've got to curb my spending, reading X complaining bitterly about GST also, about the Govt overlooking her welfare, made me slightly ashamed to be anyway associated with her and her own spendthrift, fala-dee-dee lifestyle.


haiz....I really don't like her views....

but ENUFF! A few things to curb depression!

1) Only ever tell it to 1 or 2 trusted friends. That's enuff frens to keep update because really, the less I talk about it, the less I wallow in it. and also, not a lot of ppl want to hear about my problems, so why ruin their mood?

2) Silence is inifitely golden. I get ppl coming to tell me about their problems. After hearing them, thank goodness I kept my mouth shut.

3) Tell myself it's going to get better and this is only a phase. Of cos, should make all the necessary decisions to bring yourself out of the misery. Sorry lah, no one can really help you if you don't help yourself first.

4) Always see the funny side of things. In fact, I managed to give my office colleagues a tiny magic show. I levitated off the ground---yah yah, can be done, next time show you, heheheh. And secondly, amid all their protest that I had a big fat butt, I demonstrated otherwise.

I held 2 pencils using my bottom-butt-cheek.


One beneath each cheek. Yeah.


It's a sight you don't see everyday.


And I left the office feeling remarkably happy that I left a party of 15 frens rolling over their seats in stomach cramps.




That's all. Keep happy, all!


OUT!

AKK:)

Monday, November 20, 2006

being depressed

hi all...


Have been depressed these few days lah... lots of stuff to worry about, ie work, life, love, time....

so nothing funny happening at all, so might as well don't churn out depressing entries....

No worries though, things will only get better, as always. And perhaps i now having PMS, that might account for a lot of mislaid emotions.

Till then, guys!


Hanging in there,

AKK