Tears of Joy

Full disclaimer: I cry A LOT. Be it because of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, cute things, pain in my ovaries or just pure joy, I bawl because my face is telling me to do it.

I got to vote today. I am 22. It has been 8 years since anyone in this country had the opportunity and I was excited as a diabetic planning a midnight fridge raid.

I voted because I had the chance. I voted because I wanted to be part of the process.  I voted because, because. because. 

I kai-colo'd dat ink goooood.

The last elections I was a space-headed teenager. I didnt understand a thing. I was far more concerned with anime, nacho baskets and figuring out whether I was broken or not because i didnt want to kiss any/all of the things. 

As a 22 year old I have heard heart-breaking and uplifting stories. I have finished high school and a degree. I have seen what it means when people cant get decent healthcare, decent food, decent living conditions. I want the right to talk back to my decision makers. I want a stable now, not a promise of some stable future. I want to contribute.

I went around the island today. I saw way too many fires, filmed an interview with a rural female candidate, watched people walk barefoot to polling stations, parents struggling with babies and toddlers and wily children. I saw my aunt being escorted out of our polling station because she rightfully stood up to a rude official. 

I also got hit in the back a lot by a guys ginormous pot-belly, but thats just a thing that happened today.

As my mother drove us back home, after 6pm, we were listening to the news and hearding what people were saying, their joy at getting this day, this chance, I choked up. We had ELECTIONS. It may be just some illusion but fuck that, i voted and I am not going to let any elected leader tell me what I want. 

I want to be part of stopping our coup culture jokes. I want stability. 

pew pew I shoot you with my fresh democratic rights. 

Tags on tags on tags

I was tagged on Facebook to write about books and games - a top ten roundup. I spent quite a while double-checking and so forth so why not share it on the place where I do all my writing anyway? Yay!

Ok since I have been asked to write about my top 10 books AND top 10 games, I'm lazy and am only going to do a half-half on games and books because who said you can't like both.

Books:

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden: I read this book to death. I no longer have it because I read it so many times and now all the pieces of the book are missing. I loved it like a crazy person. Initially obsessed with anything Japanese, I was drawn into the book but stayed for the characters.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes: A diary-style novel about science on the brain and how we treat human beings, hope we value those we love and what it means to be brain-type smart. I cried when (spoilers) Algernon died. Why you do that to my heart, Keyes? So much foreshadowing.

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett: super-duper girl power from the amazing mind of Pratchett. In a country proud of its militarism (by those who get to talk about it), was interesting to be put in the shoes of girls in war in a less depressing way than most books. Also a lot about femininity and the notion of a higher calling that was kinda cool. Idk. It was my first Terry Pratchett book.

Sammy's Hill by Kristin Gore: about politics and media on Capitol Hill. Also with some rom-com features and a neurotic female protagonist, I was hooked on her quirky nature, her constantly brink-of-death fish and the love story part that poked fun at love stories.

The Door to December by Dean Koontz: This is on the list as the first book I destroyed. Koontz was one of my favourite authors growing up for I-have-no-idea-why reasons and this book also no longer exists in my possession. A story about science mixing with the occult, the love and care for human beings and the need to protect children... I dont know, it's just one of my favourites.

Honorable mentions: Some short story about a girl being married to a Banyan tree, The God of Small Things and all the Adrian Mole books (I love you, Sue Townsend).

And now, Games:

The Sims. Tomodatchi Life. Any game I get to play God. I love sim games with people in it. I don't know, maybe it's my OCD or something or the other but I intensely love games where I can make perfect people but then mess with their lives. Also, make all the babies!

Banished, Civ 5 and SimCity. Also (awkwardly) Dream House Days by Kairosoft. City builder sims I felt needed their own mention because they're not about people per se, but rather about efficient system management. I deserve an award for town planning. Or maybe I dont. Please don't ask about how my Banished village is doing.

Dragon Age and Fire Emblem: Awakening. Okay, so I adore the Dragon Age Series, no matter what people say about Kirkwall. I love the immersion and the massive scope of the world. I feel like Fire Emblem goes along with this because of the party relationship building that happens. I, like the crazy person I am, put way too many hours into fixing Alistair and Anders as well as fixing Chrom and finding all the different relationship stories in Fire Emblem. I am a crazy person.

World of Warcraft. Okay, I am an awful MMO gamer. I hate playing with other people but just like Dragon Age, the world is expansive and huge, the story rich and the experience addictive. I had taken a short break from rogue-ing because I have a lot of work to do but hey, it's a thing, right?

Don't Starve. It's the only “scary” game I've been able to play and massively feeds on my OCD. I build my camp as guided by my OCD, set up farms and I think I've played a 100+ day game and eventually stopped because I was losing sleep. Goddamn you, Klei.

Honorable mentions: Scribblenauts (because everything is fun when you're riding a huge, rainbow pooping duck), Pixel Dungeon (the only game on my phone) and almost everything in the Final Fantasy franchise (which didn't make the official list because I didn't play them, I watched my brother play them growing up.)

Dad, dada, daddy.

Today was Father's Day. I dont know how many actual other countries were celebrating with us but I feel like it was a day that went completely over my head. I lost my father the year I turned 16 and have been so angry for so long, frustrated at the fact other people had something to celebrate and depressed as soon as the advertisements were hanging from shop windows and plastered all over the media. I was hurt, jealous and just a bundle of angst and I didn't get like that this year.

Maybe it was because I was (and am) busy, or because I was upset and fuming about so many other things or I've just built an immunity to ads. But maybe not. I knew the holiday was coming; I abused a Father's Day sale to buy a ring for my partner. So maybe this means Im getting older and more mature.

I don't really know why but the thing is the ads and the sales - none of that hit me in the feels. What did were the Facebook posts. I hate Facebook posts for so many reasons: they're gloat-y or misspelled or dramatic. I often overlook birthday reminders because if I didn't actually care to remember, that's my fault. But today... I dont even know.

It made me think; did I want to post a status about my dad? Did I want to dig out all the pain and frustration and loss and anxiety that flowered 6 years ago because of one commercialised holiday? Nope. I wanted to write.

My father is a man I honestly barely understood. I wasn't old enough to understand that people are different with different people when I lost him. My parents were divorced shortly after I was born, just a handful of years. I never knew much about his work. What I did know was that he was my Dad.

He taught me how to understand language lying on the floor of his home office with a jotter from school, defining words for myself. He would cook with love that I only hope of replicating; I never learned how to cook from him but I have come to know what cooking-as-therapy was to him and is to me. I taught me that you do not borrow money from a parent because they are there to support you; they expect no paying-back-business. He also taught me that you have to live with your choices - especially when your choice was to put your hand through a window.

And by extension, that you never want to try to eat a hotdog with one hand because the other is bleeding

.

I dont know how to feel half the time about my Dad. I heard awesome stories about his escapades, awful stories about my parents' soured marriage, the legacy of him as a teacher to some and as a co-worker to others. But at the end of the day, while I no longer lose sleep missing and mourning him, I do wish that he was still around. I don't know if I could have been the person I am today if he was but it's gonna suck having a family of my own with only stories of him to raise them on. Happy Father's Day.

Value in Vocalisation

Ho-ho-oh man, today was so super strange. Of course I had a few short showers on my otherwise parade-of-a-day but the work I did actually get done had left me a little blown away.

After a full-on half hour morning show segment about all the things in the print media with references to stories and things here and there online, I packed up my stuff and did a pair of interviews for the documentary I working on. The first was definitely a lot shorter than the second but oh, all that came before it.

A peer educator, my interviewee was currently part of a group doing blood tests for HIV/AIDS on one of the university campuses. I chatted and got to know the work and I've been seeing a lot of issues emerging and running in parallel to sexual reproductive health (SRH). When I asked what people asked questions about I felt so many mixed feelings.

Basic condom use, from how to actually wear one to discovering that were we actually different sizes; actual condom negotiation, misconceptions and, to some extent, the close-mindedness of the "educators" that have come before. I, of course, took the opportunity and networked a bit to find a male companion for a one-off show I hope to produce about communicating about SRH. But after the camera was packed up and I was on my way to the next interview, things shared felt like a mixed bag of surprise and what I know to be commonplace. I wasn't sure what to make of all of it.

We are a tight-lipped nation on the subject. And because of this I try and make as much noise as I can. Sure, there are cultural and religious sensitivities but there's no denying that sex happens. After my second interview I caught up with my colleague who was helping me film and she asked "but what about sex?"

She has a young daughter and we were casually discussing our ideas about child rearing. She said she would hope she remains an open minded parent, one who would allow her daughter to date, even in high school. I chimed in, adding that it could be a way to socialise and be safe in determining the nature of relationships she would want as an adult. And then the question. "But what about sex?"

And what about it? I have a firm belief that parents need to cut the crap, drop the rhetoric and actually be willing to hear it when their children grow up and develop all the hormones that make them sexual beings. If they arent able to articular those kinds of things and feel safe, how can they be expected to talk to their future partners? It's an invaluable skill when it comes to determining when they feel ready, what kind of contraceptives they would prefer or discuss consent.

Sure, maybe parents should just "stay of it" but how does that help a developing, learning and growing human being? They need a guide to learn how to develop healthy relationships first and foremost between engaging in the sexytimes. Protecting yourself isn't just about a condom, it's about being secure emotionally and definitely physically.

If you hastily engage in a sexual relationship if you aren't ready or if you have no safeguards, how can people be safe from sexual coercion or abuse? How can you form a family if there has been no discussion, no planning as partners? If you can't tell your parents (who obviously did the dirty and that's why you exist) then who can you tell?

So I heard you have feelings

I am prone to stress. Although, that said, a lot of people in this "modern age" are. I was a constantly sick child from the moment my brain was able to understand the concept of expectation. I was incredibly nervous and eventually developed stress migraines halfway through primary school. No one told me "you must get straight A's, you must excel, you must do this that or the other". As a straight-B student, I was always trying to keep up with things I made up in my head as goals. I guess I also just felt an immense need to prove myself. To who? My parents, I guess.

I suppose I had seen how proud they were of my brother as he skipped a class and was outspoken and friendly. I wanted to be as good at stuff as he was but never quite lived up to it. Throughout high school I felt the same self-inflicted pressures but turned up a notch when I found myself on half scholarship. I would also have very dark periods of stress because after losing my father I felt like I only had half the guidance and purpose I did before. I couldn't make him proud because he wasn't there.

All these pressures and stresses added together have stayed with me for years and years and it has been awful. Last year, as a dedication to one of my inspirations and best friends, I put together my contribution for the Sokota exhibition and focused on mental health. It was an experience all on it's own to show the pieces I had made in the end. I was compared to the large, painted canvases and felt that my pieces, mixed media in all their mess and otherwise, didn't live up to "exhibition expectations and standards". I had my pieces seen though, recognised and a handful of people told me they liked it and thought it was different.

It was strange because I had finished university by then. I was definitely no dux but as I looked through the list of people graduating I found so few of the people I started uni with actually on the list. I had finished something. Sure, I finished with an average B grade but I actually finished. I volunteered throughout the whole period, lost and found love, I was there to try help my Ma through cancer treatment. I had found passions and opportunities.

But then we are here. Today. Still struggling to find one full time job, Im currently stringing together a part time job with 3 freelance projects. I don't try to keep busy but busy sure as hell finds me. And with the busy creeps back the expectations I have for myself. So much I have done since high school was for someone else, to make people proud or give back in some way to those who have got me where I am. But now I'm all out of sheltered opportunities. I'm in a place where only I can make myself happy because I know what makes me happy.

Sure, I may have family and friends and an amazingly supportive partner but unless I tell my nervous, shivering self in the corner of my mind of shut up and sit down where I cant see her, they all count for nought. And other people's negative voices? Sure, let them say whatever they want. I will try to be peaceful when I can but no more pretending everything is hunky-dory just because they'd rather play blind. I want to make other people happy with my work. I don't know just how yet but I need to come from a place of happiness first, don't I?