about being doubted, accused and having an inferior complex?

I’ve learnt it the difficult way, that if you try to pursue your own agenda you basically end up being royally screwed.

What happens then, when you’re actually trying to further the interest of the group, but someone, who claims to be doing the same, and with sufficient and convincing reasoning, is going against you? Do you still back down to avoid the tremendous stress of defence and consequence of being eternally labelled as… what is it that they call me? Oh yeah, “bitch”.

The awkward thing in my life is, I’d love to speak up about a lot of things, but in a lot of ways I’m terrified of being doubted and accused. Probably because of the traditional Chinese education I’ve had – something about trusting in fate and keeping my mouth shut in general. I think the worst part about being doubted is because I have a damned inferior complex which leads me to doubt myself on so many occasions. Allow me to be incredibly teenage for a moment and give you a real-life Asian high school example. Coming out of every exam or test I never feel good about myself because 1. I usually end up screwing up anyway, 2. even if I actually did well I doubt myself because everything, every single damned thing in my life, seem to always end up being too good to be true (especially in the boyfriend department).

Should a person who doubts even herself even be allowed the right to voice opinion? On the other hand, should a person who does not doubt herself at all be given that right as well? Lately, I seem to be meeting a lot of people who are of the latter category, and honestly I kind of want their kind of life. At least they don’t go to bed in the night having to worry about every bloody thing they said in the day, recalling all the stupid mistakes they think they have made, when the only mistake they could have made was doubting themselves.

But today I’ve learnt one thing. All the cliche things about “going for it” and “chasing the impossible dream” doesn’t exclude doubting what you’re going for and chasing what you think is too far to reach (thus dream, because I’m pretty sure that dream last night about me dating a hot billionaire who did not end up dumping me would not come true, considering the track record). At least if you doubt yourself, when you fail you can tell people you have effectively predicted the future, and that “thud” you hear when you hit the ground won’t sound as bad as it would have if you had put yourself on a pedestal.

But yes, I am royally screwed, thank you very much.

flashbacks ): Damn you memory.

alone for a short while, to try and get my act together. With you, it was looking out for shooting stars, one of which granted my quick but heartfelt wish. Tonight, there are no stars. And there never will be again.

I came back from Europe and of COURSE the first thing I did was catch a cold. Reasonably I raked the cabinet for anything vaguely resembling cold pills and ended up taking three pills, white, red and yellow, with absolutely no medical reference or common sense (I just liked the colours). I went to bed straight after that and dreamt about getting really fat (realistic) and applying for the wrong subject at uni and sending it to the wrong faculty (also realistic), plus owning the Moleskine factory and producing a 2010 diary which was red but NOT a twin set (unrealistic, but should be seriously considered).

I woke up and immediately realised something odd about my surroundings: I could not hear a thing. I decided there must have been something wrong with my nose (since, of course, the nose was made to hear). And thus, motivated by the imminent desire to blow my nose, I did just that. By the end of the hour I’ve used up an entire box of tissues. Of course, it was a relatively small box of tissues which was already half used up, but this is my blog and I can exaggerate as much as I want.

And so here I am typing away, grammatical error- conscious, telling you how amazing my day has been so far. I remember once in class our history teacher (the same one who talked about Asian weirdness) asked us whether we had blogs, and before we could defend our honour he decided to tell us that writing a blog was about the most self-centered, self-absorbed thing to do. Well what can I say; I can’t help it that my massive fan base is violently interested in what pills I took last night. I can’t let them down now, can I!

at appreciating Europe was much less successful as compared with my first. London was charming and friendly; I grew fond of it and still yearn to return. Italy, however, was much less so. Although I have not been mugged, raped, arrested or thrown in a dungeon of lions (or whatever it was the crazy Romans practise), I have not quite enjoyed the good food or good company I so looked forward to.

To be fair, I did achieve my main aim of going to Italy – fulfilling the teenage checklist-item of going on a school trip, and taking loads of photographs. However, because it was a school trip we had to hoard restaurants forty hungry tourists at one go, and obviously waiters were impatient and cooks reduced to mass production of unrealistically stereotypical tourist group food, complete with undercooked pasta and what tasted like and appeared to be expired canned fruit for desert. Remembering this, I am so amazed at how well the teachers dealt with us; I’m sure looking after us was much more challenging than anything Italian cooks were faced with.

In terms of photographs, overall it did make my amateur photographer side happy. When I was in the Vatican City, the lighting was beyond perfect, and the Tuscan sun was impeccably beautiful. But of course, as any tourist in Italy would note, I didn’t have enough time. Plus I didn’t have a willing model who was not my unwilling classmate who did not want to look vain and self-absorbed. Eventually I still forced my classmate to pose for me, and yes, she did complain about me making her look vain and self-absorbed.

At this juncture I would just like to add how willing a model I would have been for myself. Because, yes, I am vain and self-absorbed, no doubt about that.

And so I have returned, with genuine Italian leather souvenirs (still regretting why I didn’t buy ten of the same leather belt), and to happy messages telling me how beautiful my postcards were. And of course, I am now overwhelmed by extreme optimism and anticipation towards the relaxing, successful, and generally brilliant life I lead outside of a mid-October school trip. I really should not complain about Italy, because at least in HK I have internet connection. And a comfortable bed. Oh, you have absolutely idea how great my Asian bed is. At our hotel in Rome we tried to get on one of the beds and it collapsed. Literally. We found it pretty funny back then, but now when contemplating it with the benefit of hindsight, it was just pathetic.

Want to know something else that’s pathetic? In the itinerary our teachers kindly provided us with, us girls were reminded not to sleep with Italian men if they asked us to, and if they asked us to marry them, not not marry them. Unfortunately I have an unattractive and threatening Asian face, and therefore only attracted a grand total of two Italian men, which of course added considerable weight to my already plummeting self esteem. Actually I’m not even sure if they were pick up attempts, since they were speaking in Italian and I had no idea what they were saying. For all I know those Italian men were just asking me politely whether they could mug me. Strange beings, Italian men can be.

Photos up on flickr. Approaching my upload quota… dammit.