Girl and City

Coming-of-age story about a girl and her city.

Grievance Letters Pt 3

Dear SnootyAsianGirl,

I never had a good first impression of you, but I wanted to give you a chance by including you in our negotiations team. What do I get in return? You are a clueless, useless member of the team, and all you do is flirt with the guys on the other team. When you took the wrong hand-out at the end of last class and ended up being unprepared for our negotiation, do you remember the first thing you said? “SG, I think you gave me the wrong hand-out!” Um, no. You took the wrong hand-out, and then I chased you down as you were leaving to give you the right one, and you STILL ended up reading the wrong one!
You seemed like a smart girl at first, but now I am having serious doubts. I mean, if you realized you read the wrong hand-out, you probably aren’t in a position to negotiate concessions with the other team when you don’t even know what you’re talking about. When we were close to reaching a deal, you randomly started threatening them, breaking down all the rapport we had built with the other team. In those situations, shouldn’t you just keep your mouth shut? How clueless are you?

So, please, do us all a favour – for this week’s negotiation, just be quiet. In fact, don’t even show up to class at all. I’m sure the rest of us will do just fine without you.

Your Frustrated Team-mate,
SassyGirl

—-

Dear CockyBlondeJock,

You are an arrogant prick, and I don’t like you. I don’t know why you insist on teasing/flirting with me every chance you get but it is getting really annoying, so please STOP. What else do I have to do for you to get the message that I don’t want to talk to you? I’ve already tried ignoring you, dissing you in front of your friends, and yelling at you to leave me alone. Seriously, how stubborn are you? There are plenty of other girls in our school who would gladly flirt with you, why don’t you bother one of them? If you have an Asian fetish, there are plenty of other Asian girls here. If you have a petite girl fetish, there are also plenty of petite girls. But if you have a SassyGirl fetish, I can’t help you.

Not Interested,
SassyGirl

—

Dear BoysFromClub(s),

I am really liking the new trend of asking to dance with me as opposed to just rubbing yourselves against my behind. Thank you for that. Unfortunately, the answer is still, “No.”

Nice Try,
SassyGirl

—

Dear Value Investing,

I hate you. Every day, I wonder why I took your course. I don’t care that it worked for Buffet, it is not something I plan to do. And yet you continue to punish me with these dense annual reports of companies I’ve never heard of. Why, why, why do you torture me like this?

Your Anti-Disciple,
SassyGirl

—

Dear Value Investing Group Members,

If you can’t speak English, don’t write the report. And if you ask me to edit it for you, then why did you still hand in the unedited version? Thanks for wasting my time.

Ungratefully,
SassyGirl

4 comments on this entry so far. Grievance Letters Pt 3 was published on March 12th, 2010, under the Day to Day, School category.

Ironies of Life

I was looking through old emails and chat logs between MFL and I (despite knowing better than to wallow in the past – or rather, our past – because I am a glutton for punishment obviously), and I noticed that I rarely told him how I felt about him. In our entire three-year relationship, I probably said things along the lines of “I missed you,” “I thought about you,” etc. a total of four times. And I never, ever said “I love you.”
Similarly, I never discussed my relationship in my blog entries from that time, to the point that when I mentioned “my boyfriend” in one entry, one of my long-standing blog friends actually left a comment asking, “What?? You have a boyfriend? Since when??”

I was reflecting on this over coffee with BI yesterday, using it as an example of how I’ve changed since high school.
“I was so ignorant about what it meant to be in a relationship. I had no idea what was considered normal behaviour as far as showing one’s feelings. Sure, I showed him I cared in my own way, but maybe by missing out on all the cliched things, I made him feel more unsure about our relationship.”
Like a horse being whipped, words started tumbling out of my mouth at lightning speed. “I was so clueless! I didn’t know what it meant to be someone girlfriend. I didn’t know what to expect of anything. And I never talked about my feelings – not to him or to my friends.”
I took a breath.
“But now, now I know it’s ok to talk about my feelings. In fact, it’s expected that you tell your partner how you feel about them – they want to hear it! I also know it’s ok to talk to your friends about your relationship, I mean I’ve seen Sex and The City, which taught me all I need to know about commiserating. Since then, it seems like all I can talk about on my blog, with my friends, is boys! Boys, boys, boys!”
BI nodded with comprehension.
“Given that I’ve come such a long way in terms of understanding relationships between men and women, you’d think that I’d be better at it. But guess what? In the last four years, my longest relationship lasted two months.
That is the greatest irony of all. When I was in high school, I didn’t plan to have a relationship at all. I didn’t take high school relationships seriously and would have been just fine if I had graduated without ever having a boyfriend. Instead, I ended up in a three-year relationship.
But when I went to university, I was totally ready for a relationship, and guess what? In the last four years, I haven’t had a single relationship where I would actually call the boy ‘my boyfriend.’”

BI chuckled and shook her head. “Maybe ignorance is bliss after all. Once you knew what to expect, those expectations may have actually been a barrier to you falling for someone.”

Maybe she’s right. Maybe that’s why first loves seem so perfect – because they’re easy. We’re all clueless with our first love, and it’s a clean slate. Our expectations only grow from there.

But my own statistics still left me baffled. “Four years. Hundreds of boys on campus. I mean, you’d think I could find one genuine love interest, right? Even if my expectations have changed, what are the odds that I would not like a single person in four years of university?”

For that, BI had no answer.

2 comments on this entry so far. Ironies of Life was published on March 8th, 2010, under the Dating & Relationships, Friends category.

Curiousities

Everyone has habits or quirks that are particular to them. Sometimes, we’re not even aware of these behaviours until someone points them out to us or something draws our attention to them. These little habits are what makes each of us unique from another, but some of us have more quirks than others.

I’ve been told by many people that I surprise them, that I’m not quite what they expected. Although I’d like to credit this surprise factor to my unparalleled sense of humour, I am starting to think that perhaps it is due to my strange habits. Or what I’d like to call “curiousities” – as in, “Oh, that’s curious” (although no one talks like that anymore).

  • I watch Friends in my spare time. In all of my spare time. As in, if I’m not sleeping or working or in class, I am watching Friends. I have watched the entire 10 seasons of Friends at least 10 times. I have memorized every line, and yet I never seem to tire of Chandler, Joey, Ross, Monica, Phoebe, and Rachel. Unless I am in the midst of watching another movie/TV show, Friends is in my DVD player. My roommate doesn’t understand how I can have Friends on repeat incessantly. What she doesn’t know is that, to me, they are almost like real people, waiting for me at home at the end of a long day. Their trivial problems and lame jokes that I’ve heard a hundred times are a welcoming escape for whatever else might be on my mind.
  • I have to look good for exams. I will always put thought into my outfit, blow-dry and straighten my hair, and put on make-up, before going to an exam. I know no one’s going to be checking me out during an exam, but the point is that I want to look put-together. I don’t want to look like I was cramming until the last minute because I wasn’t. I don’t believe in last-minute cramming. I figure, if I look ready and confident, maybe I will feel ready and confident. It’s the best good-luck charm/ritual there is.
  • I spend more time preparing breakfast than any other meal. I never skip breakfast to begin with, but even when I am too lazy to cook lunch or dinner for myself, I am willing to cook breakfast. Even more so on important dates, like exams and interviews. Somehow, it’s like starting the day off right makes me feel like I accomplished something, and if I feel accomplished by 9am, it’s hard to bring me down the rest of the day.
  • I don’t talk to strangers. Even harmless, friendly strangers. It’s not that I don’t know how to chat, it’s that I don’t want to. Perhaps it was ingrained in me when I was much younger, because friendly strangers were not as prevalent in China. But I’ve been in Canada for nearly 10 years and still, I do not want to have conversations with strangers. On the other hand, I can instantly become best friends with someone I’ve just met, but only after a formal introduction.
  • I believe in formal introductions. For example, if I am talking to Bob, and Bob’s friend joins our conversation, I will not acknowledge Bob’s friend until Bob says, “SG, meet my friend, X.” And then I will warm to X immediately. But if Bob never introduces us, I will ignore Bob’s friend and probably drift away from their conversation and let them continue without me.
  • I use the Thumbnail Method to peel a banana from the stem, and I cannot understand people who peel bananas from the opposite end.
  • I always use British spelling, and Canadians who use American spelling irk the hell out of me. I am even more riled when I see American spelling on Canadian sign-posts.
  • I always mix wasabi and ginger into my soy sauce when I eat sushi, even though I know it’s wrong. But I eat sushi because of the wasabi-soy sauce mix, so it’s not something I am likely to change anytime soon.
  • I like to wear heels but I hate the sound it makes on hardwood or granite floors. To mitigate this, I sometimes tiptoe in high heels so the heel doesn’t hit the floor.
  • If there is an ingredient I don’t like in a food, I will pick it all out, every last bit, even if it’s messy. If the bad table manners is really unacceptable in that setting, I will not eat it at all.
  • I am a picky eater, but I hate people telling me I am a picky eater. Because when they say it, it sounds like they’re chastising me, whereas in my mind, I am no different from a food critic (i.e. I am critical of the food I eat). On the other hand, I hate to waste food (of food that I actually will eat).
  • I only eat Navel oranges by slicing them into wedges with the peel still intact. I will never peel a Navel orange.
  • Before a night of drinking, I always make sure I have some fattening foods stored at my apartment. When I get home that night, I will always pig out and watch TV for a few hours until I pass out. So even though I may get home at 2am, I definitely won’t be in bed until 4am.
  • I can’t go to bed immediately after getting home, drunk or not. I always have to “de-compress” by watching TV or something, so that my mind is cleared before I go to bed.
  • I prefer to hang, rather than fold, my clothes. In my dream home, I’d have huge closets and no drawers at all.
  • I do not wear or own yellow clothes.
  • I feel naked without nail polish, even though most of the time, I wear clear or nude nail polish.
  • I eat cereal as a snack. When I am on vacation, the first thing I buy is a box of cereal, which can be both a snack and a meal.
  • If the United Nations does not recognize a state as a country, I do not recognize it as a country. And if anyone ever mentions it, I always immediately point out the fact that that state is not a country, even if it is not the time or place to start a controversial discussion. It’s like an instinctive reaction, even though sometimes I really should keep my mouth shut.
  • I like the idea of eating eggplant, but I don’t actually like eggplant.

What are your curiousities?

12 comments on this entry so far. Curiousities was published on February 25th, 2010, under the Me, Me, Me! category.

The Not-Studious Nerd

At first glance, I fit the “nerd” stereotype. I’m smart, I do well in school, I’m good with computers (bonus points for having an online persona), and I wear glasses. But that is where the stereotype ends. I drink, I party, and I make friends wherever I go.

I am also a slacker.
Most people equate good grades with studious. But this is an illogical conclusion. Case in point. This morning, I had a four-hour exam. I spent the entire week watching Queen Seon Duk, a 62-episode Korean period drama, telling myself I would study when I got back to University Town. I got back on Monday, and spent the entire day yesterday watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy1. I spent an hour in the morning blow-drying and straightening my hair2. And I spent most of the four hours during the exam trying to scrape off the chipped nail polish on my fingernails.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if I got an A on the exam. It’s happened before.

If my friends knew how little I study (for exams or in general), I think they would all stop being my friends. So I always pretend to be studious when it’s close to exam time, and I always pull in my weight for team projects. After four years of university, my peers have yet to realize what a slacker I am.

  1. I suppose that earns me extra nerd points, but to be honest, it was because I had no other DVDs in my apartment, and I wanted to watch something on our plasma TV as opposed to on my computer. [↩]
  2. I always have to look good for exams. I don’t know when this ritual started, but I cannot allow myself to go to an exam with sweatpants and messy hair. I may look like that all week, but at the exam, I will look pristine. [↩]

9 comments on this entry so far. The Not-Studious Nerd was published on February 24th, 2010, under the School category.